Last year, the streets of a small neighborhood in Naperville were flooded with Swifties waiting to see the viral Taylor Swift Christmas house.
For the past 23 years, the Scott family has created Christmas light displays with various themes and visuals. After seeing the Eras Tour movie, resident Amy Scott knew she wanted to create a Taylor Swift display during the 2023 season.
“So with all the Taylor Swift stuff last year, I didn’t come up with the idea until I saw the movie,” said Scott. “That’s when the idea hit me, and then [we] just started to brainstorm.”
The house was covered in the eras of Speak Now, Red, 1989, and Evermore. The decorations include many nods to Swift’s music like friendship bracelets and of course, the number 22.
OH students have enjoyed the displays and look forward to this year’s, too. “We went on Christmas Day, which was cool because they still had it up… they had each of the vinyls on the roof. There were so many lights and so many people. It was so much fun to just look at and watch,” said OH senior Elanya Soyke.
Last holiday season, The Scotts became an overnight sensation when a TikTok about the house reached over 900K likes. They were then flooded with interviews, videos, and visitors loving the display.
After the 2023 holiday season came to an end the Scott’s thought, what now? They reached heights that they had never seen before and possible themes for the 2024 season started to form.
“I wanted to go simple this year, [my husband] wanted to go big. And so we started by coming up with a mission statement together,” said Scott.
After the sudden popularity from last year, the Scotts wanted a mission statement that they could fall back on.
“Our mission statement says something like, we want to bring as much love and happiness to as many people as we can, while still maintaining grace with our neighborhood and raising money for charity,” said Scott.
So with the mission statement in mind, the Scotts went through different themes they might want to do.
“My original idea was, let’s do Inside Out this year because I love the mental health aspect of Inside Out,” said Scott, “so then we went back to that mission statement, like, okay, so if this is our goal, [we] think [we] can still do Taylor Swift and still appeal to a lot of kids and families and still reach our goal together as a family.”
The new display showed some of Swift’s other eras like Reputation, Folklore, The Tortured Poets Department, and of course, the beloved Kelce cut-out. The house opened over Thanksgiving weekend, however the construction started in early October.
“We’ve been making things. [My husband] has been printing things… our garage is like Santa’s workshop. We’ve been working on the house every weekend for like, the last [four] weekends,” said Scott.
Many OH students who visited the house last year are planning to make a return for the second year of “Swiftmas.”
“I thought the [last year’s] house was so cute, and I would totally go again,” junior Audrey Vlna said.
The lights are on at 4:30-10:30 p.m. on weekdays, and 4:30-10:30 p.m. on weekends. The house is located at 1228 Atlas Ln, Naperville, also known as “Swiftmas House” on Google Maps. The display will be up from now until January.
The centerpiece of the display is a Tortured Poets Department typewriter, typed on it was a heartwarming letter left by the Scott family.
“May you have a holiday season filled with joy, peace, and love,” typewritten letter was signed.
Hi I'm Chayse! I'm a Senior at OHS and this is my first year on the 42Fifty team. When I'm not at school, I participate in activities such as BIONIC, Commotion, SOTC, and many various Honor Societies! You can contact me by emailing 42Fifty@sd308.org and putting my name in the subject line. We welcome comments on our articles and feedback on our publication!
Yes I am ready for it. I love thisss