TMT Farms’ sprawling drive-thru Christmas lights display will take a break this year – not opening at all for the 2023 holiday season – but should return soon after Thanksgiving 2024, host families patriarch Roy Thompson said Tuesday.

“Right now I don’t know what the future will hold. We’ve decided to take off a year and reconfigure,” he told the Statesboro Herald in a phone interview.

That’s a somewhat different message from one posted by the Thompson and McCranie families on the “TMT Farm Christmas Lights Drive-Thru” Facebook page Saturday morning, Sept. 9. That message, picked up by online media and at least one TV station, stated in all-caps that “2022 was the last year” for the attraction, which has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to a rural area of northern Bulloch County each night of the holiday season from Thanksgiving until a day or two after Christmas.

“After a few family meetings, we decided that it was time. We never expected it to grow to the magnitude that it did,” the Sept. 9 posting stated. “While we are grateful that it did, it also brought lots of work, time away from our other family, vandalism and theft. It is time to get back to our families during the Christmas season!”

Roy Thompson, now in his seventh year as chairman of the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners, and his wife Deborah Thompson, who together own Statesboro Floor Covering, started what became the TMT Farms exhibit on a much smaller scale about a quarter century ago.

The Thompsons, their two adult children and their spouses – Jennifer and Jeff McCranie and Tyler and Chrissee Thompson – and some members of a third generation have carried on and expanded the display. Donors and volunteers also contributed materials and labor as it grew to include real and stage-set buildings, even an entire simulated Western town, antique farm equipment, wagons, sleighs, Santas, fiberglass and inflatable animals, mannequins and replicas of historical Bulloch County landmarks such as Snooky’s restaurant, Henry’s barbershop and the former Pav-a-lon and pool from the Recreation Department’s Fair Road Park.

All of those things, and of course many trees and poles that became Christmas trees, were outlined in lights. It became what has been described as “1.8 miles of Christmas wonderland.”

Charity site

No admission fees were charged, but visitors have been asked to bring donations for families in need, including nonperishable food items, new toys, cash and even pet food. In peak years, the number of visitors was estimated at around 300,000, including repeat visits during the season. Last year, Thompson reported, the display was responsible for collections of more than 95,000 pounds of food, distributed, as in previous years, through local charity Christian Social Ministries.

Last Saturday’s message on Facebook continued: “We are so grateful for every person that has come out since we started this many, many years ago. You all have provided hundreds of families with food, hundreds of children with gifts, hundreds of pets with food and hundreds of families with the blessing of getting to keep their power on, catch up on their rent, have a much-needed surgery and the list goes on. To everyone who volunteered their time out here ... We Thank You!”

Theft, vandalism and other damage have been a perennial challenge for a high-traffic exhibit through private property. A December 2017 incident in which four mannequins and an inflatable reindeer were destroyed resulted in criminal charges against three young people, ages 15-21, but that was neither the first nor the last incident.

Originally, visitors were allowed to walk through the exhibits, but because of concerns about increasing crowds and repeated damage, the host families made it a drive-thru only display for part of the 2019 season and afterward.

Keeps them home

Other factors reportedly behind family members’ thoughts of drawing the tradition to a close, and the decision they’re apparently sticking to, to take a break from it this year, are that it requires almost year-round preparation and then keeps them at home for evenings through the season.

“We cannot leave – you know, that might be a selfish thing – but Deborah, myself and others that go out to basketball season during that time, we can get out, but we can’t get back in,” Thompson said. “We’ve had a 2½-hour wait out there to get where we can get on a back road to go home.”

But his comments Tuesday held the prospect that the display will return after the extended family takes a break for a normal holiday or two and plans for a new way to continue the tradition.

“I know it’s disappointing; it’s disappointing to us, but we need a little time to ourselves so we can have a normal Thanksgiving, and that’s the other thing,” Thompson said. “We’re going to have to think about timing. We may open it up next year, ’24, right after Thanksgiving.”

Why this partial reprieve from an apparently final announcement?

“There’s been an outcry wanting us to bring it back, and we’re listening, but it’s time to take a break, reconfigure, redesign,” Thompson said. “We need to figure out how to do it better.”

Give direct

As for the charitable giving that the display has supported, Thompson notes that Christian Social Ministries will welcome donations of food and other items at its thrift store and food pantry, 122 E. Parrish St., Statesboro.

He also reports that a motorcycle riders group that operates as a charity, Chosen Soldiers Motorcycle Association, will be collecting toys and says a former bank location in Portal will serve as a toy drop site.