Beloved Regina Christmas light show to shine on after founder's sudden death

When Chloe Allen was 10 years old, she realized her dad’s new Christmas hobby was something special.

“When it all started, there were a lot of people coming out to just stand in front of our house,” Chloe recalls. “And I thought, ‘well, nobody else really goes to stand in front of anybody else’s house.’ So that definitely seemed a little bit different than everybody else.”

Chloe’s dad, Trevor, founded Allen Family Lights in 2018 — a passion project for the enthusiastic tech-tinkerer, which soon became one of the most famous light and music displays in Regina and a staple of the holiday season in the family’s Lakeridge neighbourhood.

Then, earlier this month, Trevor died suddenly — leaving Chloe, now 17, determined to keep the lights shining in her father’s memory.

“He started something, and I just don’t want it to end,” says Chloe. “He was starting to teach me about it — we’d always talked about me continuing it when he didn’t have time to do it anymore — so I thought it would be really nice that I continue it on. He has that legacy that he started and I can continue to build on.”

It’s been a steep learning curve, Chloe says: Lots of YouTube tutorials and texts to local light-show designers who’d been inspired or mentored by her dad, and plenty of trial-and-error along the way.

“I still don’t even know what half this stuff is,” she says. “But I’ll learn.”

Chloe isn’t just planning to preserve the light show, either. She wants to keep the iconic elements — especially ‘Carol Of The Bells,’ her favourite sequence — and start adding her own spin on it, too.

She thinks her dad would be proud to see her making the tradition her own.

“He was very creative,” Chloe says. “He had a million different hobbies he liked to do; he could never not be doing something. He always had to have a little something on the go. He was very passionate about the things he did. If he did something, he had to master it the first time or he’d stay up the entire night watching YouTube videos on how to master it.

“He was also my curling coach — and he was a great coach. We’d be really down in the game and he’d be able to pump us all up and we’d be able to come back and win the game. He was very dedicated to everything he did.”

Chloe’s mom, Loresa Allen, says the whole family has been amazed by what Chloe has done since Trevor’s death.

“Chloe’s dad would be incredibly proud of his daughter,” she says. “Incredibly. She is blowing us all away. I keep telling Chloe, ‘there’s no pressure to do this. Your dad would not expect you to do this and would completely understand if we don’t do it.’”

“But I’m the complete opposite,” Chloe tells her mom. “I plan to expand the light show onto the second storey.”

As Chloe learns her way around the multiple kilometres of lights, tens of thousands of LED bulbs and nearly 200,000 channels that make up the light show, a recent memory of time spent with her dad has stayed with her.

“Two weeks ago, I was starting to sequence my own light show and I had no idea what to do for a couple parts,” she says. “So I just sat beside him for a bit and we talked about what I could include. And he said: ‘Break all the sounds up into difference pieces. Go one prop at a time; don’t try to do everything at the same time. Take your time.’ ”

It’s been good advice so far, Chloe says. She plans to keep following it.

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