Idaho Family’s Emotional Battle For Stunning Christmas Display Gets Apple TV+ Documentary
The story sounds like a Hollywood movie. A combination of Christmas Vacation and Deck the Halls, except this is real. It's so over the top that the story caught the eye of documentary filmmaker Becky Reed. Now Idaho Christmas story is going worldwide on Apple TV+ on November 26th in "Twas The Fight Before Christmas."
There are several Christmas light displays around the state of Idaho that are must-see. Winter Garden aGlow at the Idaho Botanical Gardens, the Winter Wonderland Festival at Indian Creek Plaza in Caldwell, and Scentsy's Christmas Lights display in Meridian. Christmas In Color made its debut last year in Boise and is returning for 2021. Then there is the Coeur d'Alene Resort's Holiday Light Show, which was recently named one of the top 10 Holiday light displays in the country by USA Today and even includes cruises to the North Pole. While those displays have their history and notoriety, none had to go to court to fight for the right to put on their shows.
Not far from the Coeur d'Alene resort, in Hayden, Idaho, Jerry Morris, known to some as "Mr. Christmas," found the perfect home to give his town a Christmas miracle. Once he moved in, the Morris family gave Hayden the biggest, grandest Christmas light display ever seen at one house. His production even featured a live nativity with real camels! His neighbors, however, didn't appreciate the show or the traffic that came with it.
After letters and even death threats, the neighborhood homeowners association took Jerry and his family's light display to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. They ordered the HOA to pay the Morris family $75,000.
That's not where the story ends. The story is still going. And thanks to this new film, it is no longer just an Idaho story.