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Young Andrew Reid is something of a holiday-time magician.
Having turned hundreds of discarded decorations into a dazzling spectacle of lights and cheer outside his home in East Northport, the 19-year-old has transformed other people’s trash into pure seasonal gold.
Reid’s holiday lights display — appropriately titled “Misfit Island Christmas Spectacular” — features nearly 100,000 lights and over 500 decorations.
Reid estimated that 85 percent of his display are “broken, discarded and repurposed” decorations that he retrieved from piles of garbage on curbsides. He spends much of the year fixing and restoring the items.
What’s more is that the display at his home at 14 Oxbox Court continues to grow: people drop off used decorations daily and Reid continuously updates his masterpiece.
“Any time that I really have, [I] usually try to fix things up,” Reid told Fox 5 New York. “Kind of my downtime. It’s my chill moment of the day.”
In a Facebook post, he noted, “I’ve been accepting donations of anyone’s discarded decorations to fix or repurpose and add to next year’s display [so that people can] watch their ‘misfit decoration’ come back to life.”
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All about the children
Reid’s Midas touch is helping to raise thousands of dollars for the new Ronald McDonald House at Stony Brook University. In fact, raising money for children with illnesses is what motivated him to begin decorating his family’s colonial home four years ago.
“I wanted to raise money [for] kids with illnesses. So I was like, why not do a display as well and also save things from the landfill at the same time?” Reid, an EMT in training, said in the Fox 5 New York report.
Here’s why Dolly from Rudolph was marooned on the Island of Misfit Toys
Another unique aspect of Reid’s display is that it is interactive. Reid invites visitors to his walk-thru display to add their own ornaments to the newly introduced Misfit Tree (a discarded Christmas tree left on the side of the road). There’s also an elf hunt that asks kids — and adults — to find the 15 elves hiding among the display.
Reid said his light show runs every day through Christmas, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. — even when it rains. He added that he is also accepting outdoor extension cords and timers that are in good condition.
“As they say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure! This is truly a treasure!!” he wrote on Facebook.
Attracting attention
Reid has been turning plenty of heads with his expansive display, including Fox5 News. Their report is below.
Award winner
This type of over-achieving is nothing new for Reid.
As a senior at Northport High School, Reid received the SEPTA Achievement Award, which is presented to students who have demonstrated perseverance in their academic and personal life, sensitivity to the needs of others, and involvement in school and community organizations.
A student-athlete who ran on the high school’s track team, Reid also earned the Visiting Nurse Service & Hospice of Suffolk-Helen Strobl Memorial Scholarship, which goes to students who have demonstrated academic achievement and are pursuing a career in the field of nursing.
Top photo: 14 Oxbow Ct. in East Northport (Facebook) and Andrew Reid (inset, Instagram).
