Staff photo by Fritz Busch Bob Paulson, left, and Bonnie Seidl unwrap lights from a tree at Sportsmen's Park Saturday.

SLEEPY EYE — Josh Palmer of Springfield said he and his family were so excited about the huge Holiday Lights In Motion display in Sportsmen’s Park about a decade ago and have been volunteering at the event since then.

“My mom, day and sister came to see it in 2014 and just fell in love with it. We’ve volunteering at it for the past few years,” said Palmer before he climbed into a hydraulic lift device to help remove about 500,000 Christmas lights from the park’s many huge trees.

Event co-founder Mike Suess said he was able to arrange for eight bucket trucks and a couple more lift vehicles to help with the take down task planned to continue in the park and at St. Mary’s school field house Sunday, Jan. 7 and Jan. 14.

Volunteers may be interested to know that Community Service hours are available at the light take down.

The unusually warm weather from Thanksgiving to Christmas didn’t seem to both him or others that toured the park, riding horse-drawn carriages on certain nights.

“Actually, the lack of snow makes for better drone videos of the light show, which is becoming more popular now. When there is lots of snow, it creates reflections,” said Suess.

“We had great crowds of people coming to the park this year. Visitors came from as far as 200 miles away,” Suess added.

Event co-founder Shari Hittesdorf said the light show began as a joke.

“Mike created a music synchronized holiday light display in his front yard,” Hittesdorf said several years ago.

“We joked that it would be really cool to do it in a public place. The more we joked, the more we thought it would be cool, so we started putting lights in the park and it just kept rolling. People never let us down. But we can always use more volunteers,” added Hittesdorf.

Five holiday light displays were set up in the park in 2014.

More light displays were added in 2015 including a 33-foot tall “dancing” Christmas tree, decorated cabins, trolley rides and North Pole mail service for kids to send letter to Santa Clause.

Several years later, there were 70 lighted trees for park visitors to enjoy from 5-10 p.m . from Thanksgiving Day to New Year’s Day.

Donations are used to buy and replace lights and add displays. Labor from individuals and organizations help build, assemble and dismantle displays each year and help raise money for the project.

All donations are tax deductible. Sleepy Eye Holiday Lights operates under the Sleepy Eye Area Foundation, a non-profit organization.

For more information, visit http://sleepyeyeholidaylights.org/