Meet the family behind Begent Wonderland on Rockhampton Christmas light trail

One home on the Rockhampton Christmas light trail attracts thousands of visitors each year, with its sprawling decorations creating an experience like no other. Take a look inside.

Thousands of people visit Susan and Gordon Begent spend hundreds of hours putting together their Winter Wonderland window display at their house in Forbes Avenue.

It takes two months, hundreds of hours, thousands of pieces and a whole lot of love for Susan and Gordon Begent to bring their winter wonderland to life each December.

The Forbes Ave couple are inundated each Christmas season with thousands of visitors of all ages, all keen for a peek at their Begent Wonderland display in the window of their lounge room.

Gordon and Susan begin assembling their Winter Wonderland in October.

Creating a magical Christmas display was a dream of Susan’s when she was a little girl growing up in Melbourne.

“We were very poor and didn’t have much of a Christmas and we’d go to peoples houses and they’d have their yards done up, it’s always been a thing that one day I might be able to do that to bring joy to people,” she said.

“This is our bit of joy.”

The huge display all started 16 years ago with a ferris wheel that was a gift from a friend.

“The next year I found a catalogue with the same brand in it and they had three pieces, so my one piece then became four on a little table and it went from that to a bigger table,” she said.

The entire top shelf of this year’s display includes new pieces, with little tributes throughout.

“Every year for 16 years I’ve been collecting more and more pieces. If I could have it up all year, I would.”

Gordon said they’d had people of all ages – from the young to the elderly who are young at heart – left in awe of their display.

“We call the third step the ‘wow step’ because it's there people get their first look at the display and just say ‘wow’,” he said.

Gordon said they have people race each other to be the first to find the Where’s Wally figurine.

“We have a Where’s Wally figurine we hide in the display and people run from the driveway to the window and have little competitions over who can find him the quickest.”

This year’s display features new additions, including a cemetery with a horse-drawn hearse donned with coins in honour of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

There are also two mini figurines on the carnival funhouse of Danny and Sandy from Grease in honour of Olivia Newton-John.

This year’s display includes a little tribute to Olivia Newton-John.

The display also has little family touches including buildings that have the names of their grandchildren on them, and pink Christmas trees in honour of Gordon’s mum who battled breast cancer.

The couple has also been collecting donations for autism awareness for the past two years.

“A couple of years ago our grandson, who doesn’t live here, was diagnosed with autism and we were looking for a new charity,” Susan said.

“Our daughter asked us if we would do it for autism and she organised with the people in Rocky and we’ve raised nearly $2500 in the last two years.”

Susan and Gordon have partnered with new local organisation CQShines this year, with all donations received staying local for autism awareness, programs and research.

You can find Begent Wonderland at 51 Forbes Ave, Frenchville.

Originally published as Meet the family behind Begent Wonderland on Rockhampton Christmas light trail