Longtime Cedar Rapids Christmas display retired

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) - A Christmas tradition in Cedar Rapids has come to a close this year, but the man behind the festive display said he’s got a lifetime of memories from his time decorating his home.

Ron Frerick has been going all out for Christmas for about the past 20 years. He’s been in the paper and has had people from all over Eastern Iowa come to visit his display.

But if you pull up to the Frerick house this Christmas, you’ll notice it’s a little scaled back. Ron said now that he’s getting older, he wants to take time to go see other displays around town.

After his daughter posted about his retirement from the Christmas display, Ron said he never expected the big response he got from the community.

”It was very reassuring to me that I did the right thing. Nobody said you should go on. Everybody said. Great job. We appreciate it. We know it’s just everything comes to an end. Yeah, it meant a lot to me and I always remember that,” Frerick said.

Frerick said it would take about three weeks to set everything up, using more than 40,000 individual bulbs and several hundred extension cords. It also comes with a $200 energy bill increase in December. But in the end, he said it was always worth it.

”I’ve had a good life. I enjoyed it ‘cause I made a lot of people happy and created a lot of memories. I’ve had people stop that came here when they were kids. Now they’re bringing their kids, and some are bringing their grandkids and they come here as adults, so it’s been a long tradition,” Frerick said.

And while it’s not as grand as it used to be, Ron still has a small display on his front porch.

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