Follow the Northern Lights

How an area High School teacher built a family business based on Christmas Spirit

The twinkle of Christmas lights in Guadalupe County has never been merrier nor brighter.

Away from under the bright city lights and nestled peacefully in a deeply wooded area south of Seguin comes the area’s most glistening Christmas experience.

As a child, Donovan Dove only imagined what lights outside his house could look like. But as he grew older, that vision quickly evolved into the return of Northern Lights, a drive-thru Christmas light display open every night from 6 to 10 p.m. until Dec. 31 at 3171 Church Road.

Dove, who by day is a high school teacher in the Schertz-Cibolo Universal City ISD, says his inspiration today is to continue sharing the joy of the holiday season with others.

 “I grew up in the Canyon Lake area and we lived on land that was kind of far off from the street, so we never really decorated the outside of our house,” Dove said. “We just decorated inside so when I grew up, got married and had my own family, I was determined that I was going to decorate my house and each year, it became kind of a challenge to go bigger. It started with just a couple of reindeer and a line of lights along the roof. That’s when we were living in a little duplex in the New Braunfels area. Then we moved into a house and from there after a couple of years, I got into synchronized lights –synchronizing lights to music.”

 The history behind the passion that led to Northern Lights is vital to understanding more about its relocation to Guadalupe County. Dove says with his passion fueled more and more after every Christmas, he realized that this dream was far from over.

 “It got bigger and bigger so big that adding more props and more lights that in 2020, I actually asked my neighbor if I could use his yard,” he said. “Not only his yard but also his house. He said ‘hey, you can come decorate my house as well.’ The one house that people would come stop by to watch the lights with synchronized music turned into two houses and the wife and I just said ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to do something where we can do a drive thru Christmas display as a side business?’ We are both teachers, so we are always looking for a side hustle but being able to do something that you enjoy and brings joy to others and make a living with it and we were lucky to be able to make that move here and buying the land here in the Seguin, New Berlin area. I just decided to follow my dream and make it happen.”

Dove says although Northern Lights has become a business venture, it remains the result of wanting to excel at a product that provides families with the ultimate Christmas experience just like he did in New Braunfels– adding that putting on such a light show comes with plenty of pressure.

 “It felt good, but it also put the pressure on because it’s like every year, everybody was expecting what is he going to come up with next? What is he going to add in next? So, I felt the pressure to keep adding and keep making it bigger and better because so many people were enjoying it,” Dove said. “I even had kids leave notes at my door thanking me for the lights and parents saying that it became like a family tradition for them to stop by my house on Christmas Eve and watch the light show and they were always wondering what new songs is he going to add in next year?”

However after stepping up to that pressure following last year’s success, Dove agreed that locking down land in Guadalupe County was ultimately the right decision. He says the rural excursion to the Christmas destination is a unique experience that can’t be compared to others.

“We were wanting something in the area,” he said. “Land in New Braunfels is extremely expensive. Seguin was more attractive and also for the fact that the Seguin area did not have anything like this. Where our house is located in New Braunfels, it’s basically five minutes away from Santa’s Ranch which is the big destination drive thru Christmas display which I think this is their 20th year that they are celebrating. So, we knew the New Braunfels area there would be competition. Seguin really didn’t have anything like this and we knew a lot of people from Seguin and he the LaVernia area as well that would drive to San Antonio or New Braunfels to go see Christmas lights. It just made sense to us to put something here that could be easily accessible for the locals and we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on that that a lot people have said it’s about time that Seguin has something like this,” said Dove.

Carrying that tradition from Comal County into Guadalupe County, however, still comes with a labor of love.

“We are truly like a mom-and-pop family-owned business,” he said. “I mean I was on a skid steer mulcher that I rented for two weeks. I carved those paths myself through the deep wooded area because this land out here was leased as oil fields. Still, it had been 30 years since it had last been used for that so 30 years of overgrowth and having to carve the path, putting down the road base and bringing the buildings on – I spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears getting everything up and running because we really did transform it from an overgrown wooded property into this 1.1 mile drive thru Christmas display.”

In fact, he says what before what was six or seven days working in a row after dark has now become a year-round venture.

“It’s an extreme amount of time and commitment that goes into it – always looking for new ideas of things to add because again after year, there is that pressure of okay,” Dove said. “I got to go bigger and better the next year and so just like with the house display that we had, there is that feeling that we’ve got to keep adding and keep the public wanting more so it’s a huge time commitment but again, when you are doing something that you enjoy and you know brings joy to others, it makes it a little easier to push through those times where you are like ‘why am I spending so much time doing this? Is it worth it?”

As for this season’s experience, Dove has made the light show even brighter with a more synchronized show. Plus, whether traveling with the windows rolled up or down, families will get to enjoy a snuggled-up journey thanks to the tasty treats found at the Snack Shack concession stand and other fun activities along the way.

“We are kind of a mix of old school and new school,” he explained. “We have the traditional classic, what we call static lights that always stay on in the form of the wire frames and the trees but of course with my background with synchronized Christmas light displays, we’ve added the new schooling as well. We have Christmas trees and light bulbs that sing along to the music that comes through your car. This year, I’ve added several of the trees in to where they have kind of an equalizer effect where they kind of bounce to the beat of the music, so our big thing is we try to have something for everyone. We also have a lot of positive feedback on our scavenger hunt that we do. On the back of the menu that we give them at the ticket booth is 10 kind of hard to find items or lights that we challenge people to see if they can find all 10 as they are going through and you’d be surprised how many people take it as a challenge and they come back around and say can we go back through one more time, we only found eight of the 10 items, we want to find the other two but also the fact that there is no waiting in lines. I think the longest line we had last year was seven minutes to get in.”

Making it all feel like a part of the community was also instilled a few years ago when his light show always gave back– a priority that he says will continue locally with the operation of Northern Lights. Hailing itself as the “most affordable drive thru Christmas Light Display in the Hill Country and Greater San Antonio Area at $28 a car (online),” Dove believes there’s always the choice to pay it forward. 

“It became kind of a way to give back to the community and that has always been a big thing for me as a teacher,” he said. “We took donations in front of my house and donated everything. One hundred percent of all money that was donated went to Communities in Schools of South-Central Texas. That just made it easier to give back to the community.”

Groups set to benefit from this year’s Christmas light display include Communities in Schools of South-Central Texas, Christ Lutheran Church along with an area animal shelter.

Northern Lights also invites specialty groups, such as foster homes, to reach out to it in hopes of helping them create even more memorable Christmas experiences for these very deserving individuals.

New this year and found at the end of this year’s journey will be a “photo opp stop” where folks can park their cars and get off to take pictures. Photos with Santa in a large wooden sleigh will also be made available Fridays and Saturdays in December. 

As a teacher, one can rest assured that there will be no winter break for Dove who will be giving all of himself so that the rest of us can find some level of peace and calm during the often times chaotic holiday season. However, it’s in those moments of working hard that he realizes that the gift has always been his.

“I’m like, what am I doing here? But when you hear those kids (and visitors) outside going ‘wow!’ That’s when you know it’s all worth it,” Dove said.

Visit www.northernlightstx.com for online tickets and season passes.