In 4-feet-high letters strung across the front of the manure pit on Ryans Glade Farm, a twinkling light display reads “Moo Moo Moo Dairy Christmas” – a dairy farmer's take on “Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas.” The farm light display also includes a large Nativity scene to celebrate the miracle of Christmas, a color-changing Christmas tree made from old wire fencing, a 16-foot color-changing star hung on the dairy barn and a tractor light display that is styled different every year.
Family members help to set up the farm’s Christmas light display in Oakland, Maryland, that can easily be seen from the main road after Thanksgiving and through the first of January from 5:30 p.m. to midnight each night.
“Seeing all the lights hung up is a sense of accomplishment for us, just like finishing planting or harvesting crops,” says fourth-generation dairy farmer Andrea Uphold. “The light display is something we look forward to in the winter season, just like making maple syrup and planting crops each spring, and harvest in the fall. It helps us beat those winter blues.”
The biggest challenge to putting up lights on the farm, Uphold says, is finding time and enduring the cold weather.
“Time is a rare commodity for dairy farmers, and it takes a lot of time to hang up all the lights,” Uphold says. “The cold weather also makes it difficult to tie up all the lights with gloves on.”
However, the time spent hanging the lights always proves to be worth it for Uphold and her family.
“Children and adults alike enjoy the light display, and we see a lot of people stop to take photos of our lights. Some children have even told their parents that all Christmas light displays should include tractors,” Uphold says. “People ask us year-round what’s going to be in our display for the coming year.”
It makes Uphold proud that their lights get people excited about agriculture and dairy farming all while celebrating the miracle of Christmas.
“We are always throwing around ideas for future light displays. Sometimes the new display for the year is even a surprise for us. We start working on the lights and come up with new ideas along the way,” Uphold says. “This year, our idea is to have a tractor with a snowblower blowing snow to create a snowman and possibly Santa’s tractor workshop in our new pavilion too. Who knows for sure; time will tell.”
In years past, the tractor display has featured a flying reindeer pulling Santa on a tractor, a snowman driving a tractor, a tractor hauling a Christmas tree on a wagon, a tractor and manure spreader, a tug-of-war competition between two tractors and a tractor pulling a forage harvester chopping corn into a silage wagon.
The family started hanging lights on their 80-cow registered Holstein farm after Uphold’s father, Randall Steyer, wanted to put a big star on the side of their barn.
“So, one year we made a 16-foot color-changing star,” Uphold says. “It’s still one of our favorite parts of the whole light display.”
Uphold’s advice for dairy farmers who also want to get started stringing up their own light display is to start with an actual tractor or implement and hang lights on it instead of creating a silhouette from scratch. She also said net lights are much faster to hang than single strands of lights.
“Any way we can portray our dairy farms in a positive light to our consumers is always valuable,” Uphold says. “It’s another avenue to help our consumers connect with their local farmers and start meaningful conversations about dairy farming.”
To see more past photos of Christmas light displays on Ryans Glade Farm, visit their farm page on Facebook.
