And while it's no longer operating, as the brothers pulled the plug after last year to concentrate on launching a local commercial Christmastime attraction, you’ll still be able to see it during the holidays, albeit on national television.
Later this month, the Pratts' display, which was known as Christmas Forever, will be featured in the season 10 premiere of ABC’s The Great Christmas Light Fight.
According to the Pratts, it will appear on the November 28 episode of the reality competition show, which airs during the holiday season and features extravagantly and excessively decorated houses from across America.
The hourlong episode, which was filmed in late 2021 when Christmas Forever was still operating, will pit the Pratt brothers against other families who go all out with dressing up their homes for the holidays.
As with any other episode of the show, host Carter Oosterhouse and Taniya Nayak, a nationally known interior designer, will pick the episode’s winner, awarding a $50,000 cash prize and a trophy shaped like a giant Christmas light bulb.
While the producers haven’t announced the episode’s other competitors yet, the Pratts' home display features enough flash and pizzazz to give the brothers a decent shot at winning.
A Gingerbread House Meets It’s A Small World
The Pratt brothers began decorating their family’s home in 2015. Sammy Pratt, 24, tells Phoenix New Times the display originally involved a few dozen strings of lights, a video screen, and some wooden cutouts. It gradually grew in size and scope.By 2020, it had become known as Christmas Forever and resembled a sprawling gingerbread house that spanned the entire five-bedroom home. It was big on spectacle and equipped with bedazzled wooden candy cutouts, 250,000 lights, bubble machines, video projections, and showstopping effects like CO2 jets and pyrotechnics.
The brothers also took a couple of cues from Disneyland, featuring a mock-up of the iconic clock face from “It's a Small World” and scent-emitting “smellitizers” that filled the air with an aroma of gingerbread.
“We went all out with Christmas Forever for [seven] years and put everything we could think of into it,” Sammy says. "We just kept building and creating."
Valley residents loved it, as big crowds typically turned out each year that Christmas Forever operated. They weren’t the only ones who took notice of the display.
Dream Comes True When Pratts Join the Light Fight
The Pratt brothers tell New Times that producers from The Great Christmas Light Fight contacted them in summer 2021 about appearing on the show. Kyle Pratt, 27, says it was a dream come true, as they’ve been watching the show since they were teenagers. It even helped inspire them to go all out with their own display.
“Even before we started [Christmas Forever], we’d sit in one of our rooms watching the show instead of going out with friends and taking notes about what makes an awesome display,” Kyle says. “Going from that to finally getting on the show was definitely surreal.”
Kyle says he got emotional when producers filmed their home display in late 2021.
“In the middle of the filming, I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I'm doing this,’” he says. “It was also a super-emotional moment because it made Sammy and I realize how far we'd come.”
The Pratts join a list of Valley residents who have been featured on The Great Christmas Light Fight, which began airing in 2013. Previous seasons have included displays by Gilbert's Comstock Neighborhood (winners in 2015), the Birkett family of Scottsdale (winners in 2017), and Laveen couple Mel and Patti Tasker (winners in 2021).
(The Pratts' appearance on the show won’t be the first time their home display has been seen on ABC. In 2020, the brothers were featured on an episode of Good Morning America along with Christmas Forever.)
Kyle says making their Light Fight debut is “especially fun” because they’re both lifelong fans of Disney, ABC’s parent company.
“[It’s] a full circle kind of moment. We grew up on Disney and are huge fans and nerds at heart,” Kyle says. “So to be on a Disney-owned network, it's hard to put into words.”
Why They Decided to Pull the Plug On Christmas Forever
When Christmas Forever is featured on The Great Christmas Light Fight this month, it will mark the final appearance of the Pratts' home display. Earlier this year, they decided to create an enormous commercial attraction called the Pratt Brothers Christmas & Holiday Spectacular, which opens at Mesa's Bell Bank Park on Friday, November 18.Kyle Pratt says their appearance on the show was a perfect way to bookend Christmas Forever's run.
“We got to a point with the [display] where we felt like we needed to do something bigger," he says. "It’s been really fun and a challenge, but we decided to move on to our own [commercial] attraction. So being on the show was a way for it to go out on top.”
But will it go out as a winner? You'll have to tune into the show, which airs locally on ABC-15, on November 28 to find out.
