Frostland Village Holiday Light and Animatronic Display in Glassboro (Pitman) NJ won last night’s episode of The Great Christmas Light Fight!
The home which is located at 23 Euclid Ave. Pitman NJ truly is a unique display featuring lovingly rebuilt vintage animatronic figures which are presented in beautifully themed display cases.
Another signature piece is the tall Christmas tree made from classic blown-mold lighted figures!
Learn more about the display below but also, I stopped in last night and filmed a video of their holiday light experience, Youtube link below. Also, the maintain a Facebook Group for Frostland Village… Join!
The suburban property features 2 driveways on either side of the front yard which are lined with the diorama displays featuring the animated characters, and visitors are welcome to walk up to get a closer view.
So to be clear, for this experience you are parking and walk around the property to see all of the displays!
So many “Wow” experiences in the displays but likely the biggest “WOW” is the large bakery sweet shop which has taken over their garage, with homeowners Michael and Lyle creating an old-time storefront facade.
Inside they’ve completely filled the space with a cornucopia of candy, bakery goods and Santa’s elves working tirelessly creating delicious Christmas treats.
The Elves move, the cake display in the center of the room rotates, and in even the back you can see gingerbread houses moving down a conveyor belt through a window!
The episode aired last night (Thursday Evening) but can be rewatched at abc.com as long as you authenticate with your cable provider. It likely is available via your cable provider’s on-demand services
Filmed last year, the couple has known for most of the year that they were the winners of the episode but had to keep that secret from friends and family until the television show debut!
It appears that last night they had a friends and family watch party as I saw several guests leaving the house during my visit, which is likely where the Winner’s award trophy is located… which is a giant holiday lightbulb!
For winning the episode against three other homes on the episode, they also collect a check for $50,000!
I honestly didn’t know this was airing and just happened to catch it on television when my wife and I were balled up in warm blankets on our living room couch… But after seeing that Frostland Village won the episode I got myself ready and headed over to Pitman to check out and display.
The trip was only 10 minutes from our Deptford home… with Frostland Village located just a few blocks behind Glassboro’s LIDL Shopping center
NJ.com was much more on top of this story than I was having reached out to the homeowners in advance of the airing, and they really put together an informative art which is available here ( it may require a subscription)
That article describes the animated figures as being created by David Hamburger, who in my additional research see they started building these figures in 1922 in Brooklyn New York.
Michael goes on to say in the NJ.com article that it was never intended that the figurines would last many decades or even a lifetime, so they can be difficult to find.. and typically need “”a lot of love” before being ready to display.
In the Great Christmas Light Fight Episode they show the process of bringing the characters back to life. Some of the figures require full refurbishment; significant repairs, repainting and new costumes, before they can be displayed.
In a response to a Facebook group post Michael stays said he has additional characters that are not on display… waiting their efforts to rebuild!
It’s an amazing transformation of the suburban holiday display because in researching I found that the couple had won the town contest in 2019 but at the time there was not one animated figure on display, and the focus was on the blown-mold figures
So when you visit in Pitman this season and see how large the display is with the variety of scenes and rebuilt animatronic characters, keep in mind that this all came together in just a few years!
This is the second Gloucester County winner of The Great Christmas Light Fight! Last year the Uszaki family of Deptford won for their computer animated display. That display is no longer at their home, and they have expanded the experience to the Glow Holiday Drive-Thru experience in Washington Twp.
Frostland Village Pitman – Experience Video
Links and Location
Frostland Village
23 Euclid Ave
Pitman NJ