Christmas Ranch Lights Up Kids' Eyes

Dec. 10, 2008 — -- When night falls on rural Morrow, Ohio, there is one place in town where everyone knows the bright, dazzling lights are starting to shine.

Spanning 110 acres and blazing more than 350,000 lights, Dr. Michael Fuchs' "The Gift of Lights" at the Christmas Ranch has been a lively staple of holiday cheer in Morrow for three years and this year is the biggest yet.

"It sounds old fashioned, but we do it for the kids," Fuchs told "Good Morning America." "There's nothing like the thrill you get watching the little ones come through. Their eyes get as big as silver dollars. It's a real kick in the pants."

But the Christmas Ranch is giving more to kids than smiles this year. A portion of each $12 admission fee per vehicle to the ranch will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House of Cincinnati.

Fuchs said he expects as many as 10,000 cars to visit this year.

The ranch is a technological wonder of flashing lights and figures with nearly 3,000 controllable parts, all handled by a computer housed in a barn.

"We added a ton of stuff this year," Fuchs said. "There's a tremendous amount of animation."

But with all of the ranch's high-tech gadgets, Fuchs wanted to keep the familiar holiday feeling. Hot chocolate is served in the barn for those warming up before heading out to see the sights and a bonfire is lit outside -- small things that are perhaps reminders of how it all got started 18 years ago when Fuchs was decorating for his seven daughters.

"A big part of it was the kids. Our daughters were growing up. It started as something for the family to make the girls happy," he said. "As they grew up, we knew we'd done something good when their teenage friends came to see them. To impress a teenager, we figured we had done something good."

Fuchs said he took the lighting up a notch 10 years ago when he began to add large figures to the decorations.

"We started using them and built displays around them. The more we put up, the bigger the crowd," he said.

Now the decorations take four friends and three months to set up.

But it is all worth it, Fuchs said, because just like in the movie "Field of Dreams," "if you build it, they will come." That's fitting, because for thousands of children this year, the Christmas Ranch will be their own holiday field of dreams.

Click here to learn more about the Christmas Ranch and click here to check out the other homes featured on "GMA" this week.