S.C. Man Decorates Ford With Thousands of Lights, Turns it Into “Christmas Car”

Indeed, “Christmas Car” is back. Brandon Wooden has been decorating his Ford Taurus with Christmas lights for 14 years on and off, and this marks the 6th consecutive year he’s been doing it as a tradition of some sort.

He’s done decorating it with thousands of lights and is already taking location requests, NBC affiliate WBAL-TV reports.

“What started as a simple string of lights around his hood during the first year has turned into a roughly 3,000 holiday light display that he calls his ‘Christmas car’,” the report says. It takes Wooden at least a couple of weeks to get all the lights in order.

However, this year is different: Wooden will no longer be driving the Taurus with the lights on. Last year, he got pulled over by the police and ticketed for improper lighting of his vehicle. He’d received warnings before, but this ticket was what convinced him to use the lights on the car only when it’s stationary.

For the record, after news of his run-in with the law got out, people donated to a GoFundMe page set up to help him pay the $230 fine. While he didn’t pay a dime out of his own pocket, he understood why the cops pulled him over.

Wooden, a train conductor, says he plans to keep up the tradition for 2 reasons: his son loves the “Christmas Car” and he likes to make people smile. Knowing he can make somebody’s day better by just showing up and turning on the thousands of lights is enough of a motivation for him.

“It’s a purpose, it’s a meaning,” he said in an older interview, “showing love through the lights and giving.”