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KENNEWICK -- When Mary Day rounded the corner on the way home from work Wednesday, she thought she was at the wrong place because her bare house glowed with 20,000 Christmas lights.
"When I first looked, I saw people in front of my house and my first thought was, 'Oh, no, perhaps a pipe broke,' " said Day of Kennewick. "The lights came on and I was completely, completely surprised and confused because they were so beautiful and I couldn't understand who had done it."
Gamache Landscaping teamed up with Star 95.7 FM to give Day and her home a complete Christmas lights makeover, worth more than $3,500, plus a $50 gift card to Cousins' Restaurant in Pasco.
The radio station asked listeners to send in their reason for why they deserved the holiday package. The contest drew more than 1,500 applicants, including Meghan Mead of Kennewick, Day's daughter.
Mead's father, Forrest Day, had always dressed up their home with Christmas lights and decorations. When he died at age 51 in June 2005 from myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone marrow stem cell disorder, their house was never quite as bright, Mead said.
"It was a really big thing and he got into it," Mead said. "He bought the blow-up Santa and he had a snowman and three reindeer and it became his thing. I think it was just the thought of having someone else do it at her house, it made it harder."
Mead discussed putting up lights on her mother's house with her husband, Josh, and the next day they heard about the radio contest.
"He looked at me and we were like, 'Oh my gosh, that's really weird!' " she said. "So 100 percent, I knew I was going to enter it for her. It was meant to be."
Mead received a call confirming she was the winner last week.
"It was really, really hard to choose," said Richard Hangartner, maintenance manager at Gamache.
"A lot of people are going through tough times with the economy and everything," he said, "and we just narrowed it down to five and basically drew out of a hat just to make it fair."
Hangartner and his co-workers began putting up lights while Day was at work at Kennewick General Hospital, where she is a physicians' recruiter.
Festive green and red lights -- most energy-efficient LEDs that are on a timer so Day doesn't have to worry about turning them on or off -- outline the home's trim. Three candy canes, two soldiers, an angel hanging on her fence and a giant poinsettia over the top of the garage complete the decor. The lights will be taken down after New Year's.
Gamache Landscaping held a similar contest in 2007 for military families, where they decorated Jody Coney's house in Kennewick for the holidays.
Day tearfully thanked everyone as she stepped out of her car.
"It's how my house used to look when my husband was alive, so it makes a big difference," she said.
AJ Brewster from Star FM, along with Hangartner and several other Gamache employees, gathered around with Day's three grandchildren to share in the excitement.
Mead wanted the contest to be a surprise. When Day told her daughter she was going Christmas shopping after work Wednesday, Mead told her mother she needed her to babysit that evening.
"It has been so hard, because I have an 8-year-old and a 4-year-old and they see my mom every day, so it's taken all of me to not say something to them and not let them overhear the conversations," she said. "We live down the street from each other and we talk 40 times a day."
Mead said her 31-year-old brother Ryan Day, who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, won't be home for the holidays but is excited and demanding pictures and video of the surprise.
As Day held her 19-month-old granddaughter Palmer and looked at her brightly lit house, she said that all it needs to do is snow to make everything complete.
"Every night I look at the house down (the street) and it looks so pretty and I think I want to be part of that too, like we used to," Day said. "Now I can have a party. Thank you first to my daughter, for whatever she wrote must have been very inspirational."
-- Bethany Woo: 509-582-1465; blee@tricityherald.com
