FOX RIVER GROVE, IL — The Mack Manor Christmas and Halloween shows have been 40 years in the making, Laura Mack told Patch this past week. And this year, for the first time in years, the owners of the free drive-thru experience at their home in Fox River Grove had to make a tough decision.
Laura Mack, who, along with her husband, David, and son, Jonas, are the masterminds behind Mack Manor at 1100 Algonquin Road, say there will be no Halloween drive-thru this year as they plan to only have one holiday show per year — this year it will be their Christmas show — instead of two.
Next year: the Halloween show will be back, but there will be no Christmas show.
There was on specific reason prompting their decision but it was something they “wrestled with for a couple years,” Mack said. Typically, the Halloween show would open the first weekend of October.
“When everything was up and running, the sense of satisfaction would run through your mind and it all seemed worth it. But we realized that these commitments to the displays was getting to consume too much of our lives,” she said. “The obligation was from August to January, every waking moment we were either planning or working on the displays.”
“We have a growing family, including grandkids, and we would like to spend more time with them and visit other family members,” she added.
The Mack family, along with their helpers, who they refer to as their “Krew,” have created both the Halloween and Christmas displays since 2009.
“The amount of work it took to take Halloween down and set up Christmas was almost impossible,
both physically and mentally draining,” she said. “Losing sleep at night, missing out on many events and functions. It started moving from being ‘fun’ work to being more ‘work’ work. And just being tired for months at a time was miserable.”
“We are not getting younger,” she added. “We felt the best compromise would be to cut back instead of just stopping.”
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Many living in the far Northwest suburbs have heard of Mack Manor or have visited it. Some make it an annual pilgrimage and lines back up along Algonquin Road for those waiting to tune their radio to the select station to enjoy the Halloween, or Christmas music, as they roll through.
During Halloween, there are actors who meander the grounds, and plenty of special effects. Over the past 10 years — during non-COVID years — around 15,000 people visit during each holiday, Mack said.
In 2020 and 2021, that number doubled. Not only did the COVID-19 pandemic draw residents to the drive-thru and more socially distanced entertainment over the holidays, but the Christmas lights show was also coming off some fame in the national spotlight.
In 2018, Mack Manor was featured on ABC’s “The Great Christmas Light Fight.”
“We actually turned them down twice since they wanted us to skip Halloween one year in order to film a Christmas episode. Instead a compromise was made to tape the show one year early, after Halloween,” Mack said.
During those years, wait times to roll through the holiday shows were long and the Mack family opted to open up the shows for longer hours.
“We had cars lined up for one to two hours waiting to drive thru. There was a lot of collaboration with police departments to keep some semblance of order,” they said. “The patience of our neighbors was tested to the limits during that year.”
The Halloween Mack Manor began in 1986 in Palatine as cardboard boxes and flashlights in the Mack’s front year. This progressed to a haunted house in the backyard for one day, built with 2-by-4’s and black plastic.
“Neighborhood kids would work in the house and scare people. For Christmas, many people would park and walk by gazing at the Christmas display,” she said.
In 1996, the Mack family moved to their Fox River Grove home on Algonquin Road and started decorating for Christmas.
“We would face blowups and lights towards the street. People would drive by slowly and enjoy what they could see,” Mack said.
By 1999, the Macks had been in touch with the Fox River Grove Recreation Council and ran fund-raising efforts to help make a haunted house possible. That haunted house was located in Lion’s Park for 10 years.
“Many of the neighborhood kids from the Palatine Halloween display work with us. They were aptly dubbed ‘Skelton Krew,'” said Mack, who added a core group of the volunteers still are the main players behind Mack Manor today. “Our children’s friends, along with volunteers, would work in the Lion’s Park haunted house. When our children graduated high school, and we ran out of volunteers, this event closed in 2008.”
In 2000, as traffic continued to back up along Algonquin Road from passersby checking out the Christmas display, the Macks opened up their driveway for people to drive through.
“In the next several years, traffic increased and the lines on the street started forming. This meant we would have to be outside controlling traffic on weekends,” they said.
In 2009, the Macks and the “Krew” opened the Mack Manor Halloween drive-thru at the Macks’ Fox River Grove home.
“The Krew would be outside scaring cars on weekends, but this led to the beginning of many traffic issues. We had only one entrance and exit, so we would have to direct traffic and allow only one car in as one car exited for all holidays and only seven cars would fit at a time,” she added.
The Mack family opted for a driveway expansion prior to filming the “The Great Christmas Light Fight” in 2018.
“This choice to be on TV contributed to the decision to expand our driveway 500 feet in the front yard and double the entrance to allow cars to enter and exit at the same time before taping of the show,” she said.
Patch has included the full questions and answer with Laura Mack below, which explains their decision to change up their holiday shows.
We have already felt the positives. We will be able to take our time and enjoy the decorating
process. We have started Christmas planning/testing. We have been able to spend a lot of time
with two new granddaughters, visiting family. Actually we plan on going on a vacation to see the
Disney not-so-spooky display. These are things we never would have been able to do. This is the
first time in years, we can attend Christmas events as well.
We are planning on setting-up every available blowup/light that we have. Most years we have
10 to 20 percent of items that never make it into the display. The thought always was — just get it up. This year the thought is to make it look more amazing than ever.
We plan on being open early in December in order to accommodate more visitors. We encourage visitors to come in early December and not wait until the week before Christmas as the lines get much longer.
Wait and see what we have planned, the biggest and most Mackified yet!
We are already starting the Christmas setup with testing lights being our first step. We will be pulling out all the blowups soon and replacing bulbs. We will be able to spend time with our granddaughters, including trick or treating. We would like to visit other displays in the area as well as visit some haunted houses — this is something we love to do just haven’t had the time for it.
The commitment starts in August and goes until January. When we were open during October/December, we spent every night running the display. We could not be open unless we were home. This meant that all our personal time went into the Halloween/Christmas Drive Thru for the months of October/December. We wouldn’t even be able to go out for dinner with many dinners being spent in the “tent’ working the flame pots or making sure snow/ice/wind did not affect the Christmas display.
Checking weather constantly and making sure decorations were down/protected was also timely. There were many sleepless nights when the wind would pick up, just thinking that everything will be shredded or torn down once we checked in the morning. You get used to listening for changes in weather and then worried about going outside and seeing damage that occurred. It would take a couple of months to get out of “check the weather mode.”
On Nov. 1st, we started taking Halloween down and did not stop, for even a minute, until we
opened the Christmas display. This was very exhausting and eventually started consuming the
fun of the entire process. We were unable to spend time doing anything else during the month of
November except working on the display, constantly worrying about getting Christmas up and
running without getting too far in December.
Just getting in and out of our home was a process. We (or visitors to our home) would actually have to enter the line and drive through the display to leave. Sometimes ourselves, or family/visitors, had to wait in lines to even get into our driveway — Christmas Eve was always crazy. We’ve been honked at because people were thinking we were “cutting the line” when all we wanted to do was get home. We had a house full of family and even Santa had trouble visiting us.
We’ve missed many events due to the commitment, and sometimes burden, of getting the
displays up and running as soon as possible so we can open as early in the season as possible.
Now that we’re only doing Christmas this year we will be able to see out of town family for
Thanksgiving this year, go trick or treating with Grand daughters, and even “going to Disney
World.”
We will miss the process of planning the layout (Halloween layout this year), coming up with tombstones, brainstorming new attractions, seeing skeletons and spending time with the Krew.
We will miss the sheer entertainment our visitors brought us. The support from everyone has
been wonderful regarding this decision. Many cannot believe we did both holidays for this long
and are excited to see what we have planned with the new scheudle.
Just the thought of how quiet it will be on October evenings is a downer, but then we think about
plans for next Halloween!
YOU CAN CHECK FOR UPDATES ON THE MACK FAMILY’S HOLIDAY DISPLAY ON THE MACK MANOR FACEBOOK PAGE.
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