{"id":614259,"date":"2025-12-05T17:33:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T17:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/614259\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T17:33:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T17:33:16","slug":"birmingham-dad-transforms-garage-into-free-santas-grotto-for-families-to-enjoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/614259\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham dad transforms garage into free Santa’s grotto for families to enjoy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Darren Mackenzie spent thousands of pounds on transforming his Birmingham home into an incredible Winter Wonderland that could be seen ‘from outer space’<\/p>\n

15:34, 05 Dec 2025Updated 15:35, 05 Dec 2025<\/p>\n

A Birmingham dad, known for his “mental” LED driveway displays, has transformed his garage into a Santa’s grotto for families to enjoy for free this Christmas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yardley<\/a> dad-of-four Darren Mackenzie spent thousands of pounds on transforming his Hob Moor Road home into an incredible Winter Wonderland.<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old has kitted out his entire driveway with festive lights and Christmas-themed inflatables for the community’s enjoyment – and is still “shopping around for more”.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong>‘I spent a fortune on my Halloween driveaway display but my kids think I’m bonkers’<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The dad, who made headlines for his ‘bonkers’ Halloween driveway display<\/a> in October, joked he wouldn’t be surprised if his home could be seen “from outer space”.<\/p>\n

“We have to turn the lights off at 10pm because they’re so bright,” said Darren who lives with partner Karen Pearce.<\/p>\n

Birmingham dad Darren Mackenzie has created a Christmas display, including grotto, for all to enjoy(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n

“We’ve got disco balls and about 12 lights in just the bedroom alone,” he said. “During the evening is fine, but we don’t want to encourage people to come over and start dancing in the driveway, like they have been, in the middle of the night. We’d never get to sleep.”<\/p>\n

The Yewtree Plants & Flowers owner has even transformed his garage into a Santa’s grotto. “I dressed up and sat outside as Santa last year but now we’ve got a grotto,” said Darren.<\/p>\n

Families will be able to meet the big man in the red suit on Fridays and Sundays, between 5pm and 7pm, from now until Christmas.<\/p>\n

Inside the grotto(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n

Darren, who will be taking on the role as Santa just for this weekend before handing over the (reindeer) reins to a “jolly old fella around the corner”, says children will each receive a gift.<\/p>\n

“All the kids will get a Polar Express bell – as long as we don’t run out – and also a photo with Santa for free,” said Darren. “I hope I’ve got enough [bells]. We get them from Temu and they take about a week to arrive.”<\/p>\n

Despite an already brilliant display, Darren has ordered more LED features for the driveway.<\/p>\n

He said: “I’ve bought a ho-ho-ho sign that’s three metres long and an animated reindeer which will sing and dance. Also have a Mickey and Minnie Mouse coming from America.”<\/p>\n

Darren said he enjoys “putting a smile” on people’s faces when asked why he had spent the small fortune on his festive display.<\/p>\n

Darren’s festive driveway display(Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n

He added: “We do it because we love Christmas and love to put a smile on people’s faces. We have the music out there until 10pm every night and the kids dance along – it’s just fun.<\/p>\n

“It’s expensive everywhere right now. Grottos are \u00a35-\u00a310 or more. Families can come here and see something without having to pay. They can forget about their bills etc for ten minutes.”<\/p>\n

Darren’s home has been illuminated since Bonfire Night.<\/p>\n

He said: “I was going to have a week off after Halloween<\/a> but it was only about two days later and I started again. We must’ve had 2,000 people visit for Halloween.”<\/p>\n

The dad said he wouldn’t be able to pull it off without help from Karren and his colleague Ashley Letts.<\/p>\n

“I have all of these ideas but I haven’t got much going on in way of design,” he said. “They’ve been a great help with that.”<\/p>\n

Karen, whilst she loves Christmas, admitted the display is a “bit mental”. She said: “It can be embarrassing. The buses and cars always stop look and horns beep. But we’ve had some really nice comments.”<\/p>\n

Families can visit the incredible display at <\/strong>553 Hob Moor Road every day in the lead up to Christmas<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Darren Mackenzie spent thousands of pounds on transforming his Birmingham home into an incredible Winter Wonderland that could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15,7843],"class_list":{"0":"post-614259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-yardley-and-stechford"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115668164236151208","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}