The Illabo Christmas lights have returned for 2025 with new displays and more than 60,000 individual lights. Photo: Supplied.
Christmas lights are a staple of the holiday season, with many properties setting up impressive displays that wow visitors.
Shining brighter than all the rest in the Riverina are the famous Illabo Christmas lights, which now boasts more than 60,000 bulbs across a half-acre lot.
Open every night until Christmas from 8 pm to 10:30 pm, the owners of the famous installation, Mel and Nick Barker, are inviting everyone to come and enjoy their iconic Christmas display.
“We have done some different things this year for our 2025 display; it’s bigger and hopefully better than it has been before,” Mel said.
“There are more pathways, more lights, more characters, more things to find and we’ve made an even bigger tunnel for people to take pictures in.
“Everything’s sort of bigger and better and we have quite a few more new bits and pieces that people have been saying are already they’re their favourite things of this year’s installation.”
The light tunnel is always a popular attraction for visitors. Photo: Supplied.
Mel and Nick have been running their light installation for several years, with the pair originally installing lights in Sydney. Now, since moving to Illabo, they have upped their game with one of the biggest shows in the region.
“My husband and I actually met when we were 10 years old, at a Christmas light display,” Mel said.
“When we were 20 years old, our very first date was going to look at Christmas lights. Christmas has been very important in our relationship from the very start.
“When we were in Sydney we were in a rental house with a little front yard and we really wanted to decorate.
“We put up a few smaller things, but when we moved here in 2018, we realised how big our front yard was and that we’d have to go bigger to build the space that we had.”
Mel’s favourite new attraction is an Aussie-themed Christmas tree made out of thongs. Photo: Supplied.
The pair’s display has now grown so large that it normally takes the entire month of November to prepare.
“We try and do it over the month of November, the whole month, but we had some other commitments that we had to do this year, so we sort of only had two weeks,” she said.
“We somehow managed to get it done – I’m not really sure how, but it’s done. We’re still out there fixing things every night with the weather, with the wind and the rain that has been coming through.”
With everything now set up and the site fully functional, there are a few new surprises that Mel is excited for people to see.
“We made a Christmas tree for our Australiana section that is made out of thongs, the flip-flop kind of thongs and framed them into a tree,” she said.
“I’m not quite sure how it came to be, but I remember thinking, you know what would make it look like a true Aussie Christmas? A tree out of green and gold thongs.”
More than 60,000 individual lights have been used in this year’s display. Photo: Supplied.
The Illabo Christmas lights will be operating every night until Christmas, but if families want the chance to catch Santa, Mel recommends coming down on Saturday, 20 December.
“Farmhouse Illabo will be providing food for a special display on Saturday night,” Mel said.
“They’re doing a bit of a Christmas buffet, because we’re expecting so many people to come out when we have Santa here.
“Ilabo RFS are also on board and will be bringing Santa to this year’s display as well.”
Viewers are recommended to arrive about 9 pm for the ideal viewing time.
