Croatian family decorate their home with over 1.2 million Christmas lights

Every year, the Salaj family celebrate Christmas by decorating their 17-acre property in the village of Grabovnica in Croatia with lights – the number of which increases each year.

The family first started the tradition in 2002, starting off with 70,000 lights and calling their festive project a ‘Christmas Story’.

Tens of thousands of visitors now regularly flock to their home to witness the stunning light show for themselves.

Featuring almost three miles of cables laid underground connecting the lights, along with about 111 miles of wires placed in trees and shrubs, it takes the family around six months of preparations to create the final dazzling display.

Zlatko Salaj, the estate owner, explained why he decided to put up the lighting display.

“I had two silver pines which I would always decorate whenever I would return home. At one point I thought: why should I bother with climbing up those big trees when I have over 700 shrubs planted around the estate now, which would be much easier to decorate?

“So for the first year in 2002 I used 70,000 Christmas lights. It was a sensational success in this area, everyone loved it, especially children.

“People started asking how many lights would I use the following year, and I said I would use 100,000. So the number grew more and more, and this year we have 1.2 million,” Mr Salaj added.