Bright lights, big meaning

McKinney couple ready to shine on ABC's Great Christmas Light Fight

A McKinney couple whose annual holiday lights extravaganza attracts visitors from all over North Texas will now get to shine in the national spotlight. Dr. Nasheel Joules and her husband, Mark Cornetti, will compete on ABC’s The Great Christmas Light Fight on Thursday, December 5.

The Joules-Cornettis will be one of four families around the U.S. vying for a trophy, $50,000, and major bragging rights. The episode will air at 8 pm on WFAA-Channel 8. (It will follow the season 12 premiere at 7 pm, which will feature a Rockwall family.)

“Our Christmas lights are not done to be the biggest and the best,” Nasheel says humbly of the spectacle that’s so big and bright it can be seen from an airplane. “Our display is done, with love, to show the community the love of God and to inspire people to be joyful and have hope even when life is difficult.”

Nasheel and Mark, for whom life has been exceedingly difficult the past few years, call their display “The Gift of Light” and use it to fundraise for the American Heart Association.

Great Christmas Light Fight, Joules-Cornetti, McKinney, Christmas lights The spectacle fills the lawn around the house.Photo courtesy of ABC

Light in dark times
Joules, a 45-year-old internal medicine physician, suffers from congestive heart failure, as well as a rare autoinflammatory disorder called CAPS disease. (Read her entire harrowing health story here.) She can no longer work as a physician due to her health, but now works with the American Heart Association to help doctors better understand congestive heart failure.

Mark, who sells custom homes, has remained steadfastly by his wife of 12 years, including through some scary weeks last year when they thought she might not survive through Christmas.

“The symptoms of CAPS disease are largely triggered by cold temperatures, among other things. We could no longer do all the fun things most people do at Christmas time,” Nasheel says. “No outdoor carriage rides, no parades, no outdoor tree lighting ceremonies, no outdoor Christmas villages, no visits to hot chocolate stands, no strolling through the park to see Christmas lights.”

Decorating their own home on the corner of Palermo Way became something fun they could do together, and although neither had ever created an “extreme” Christmas lights display before they started, they’ve let theirs grow exponentially since they first flipped the switch in 2015.

Great Christmas Light Fight, Joules-Cornetti, McKinney, Christmas lights Mark and Nasheel talk about fundraising for American Heart Association with host Taniya Nayak.Photo courtesy of ABC

“Decorating became a way to not only bring a Christmas wonderland to us, but to keep our spirits up, renew our hope, and remind us of how blessed we are, even during challenging times,” Nasheel says, adding in jest, “plus, how I can pass up the opportunity to tell Mark what to do for weeks on end while decorating (all I can do is supervise, he puts in all the labor!).”

Their display, which covers the entire multistory house and surrounding lawns, has a little bit of everything - inflatables, wireframe items, yard art, and dazzling lights, all grouped by sections. The “elegant” section is a subdued, serene section that gives people a chance to reflect on the season; a “fun” section has inflatables, reindeer, Santa Clauses, penguins, polar bears, some Disney characters, and new this year: a Buc-ee’s inflatable mascot.

The section Mark and Nasheel are most proud of, they say, is their “nativity” section, which houses traditional manger scenes and crosses. “We also have a box where people can leave their prayer requests. We go through the requests every night and pray for them,” Nasheel says.

In 2022, “The Gift of Light” raised $2,000 for the Autoinflammatory Alliance. In 2023, it raised $6,500 for the American Heart Association. This year their goal is $10,000 for AHA.

“We honestly don’t know how many visitors we get. We don’t even advertise,” Nasheel says. “We just post videos and pictures, and it kind of goes viral.”

TV spotlight
For years, people had told Nasheel and Mark they should be on The Great Christmas Light Fight.

“We had watched the show several times. But we were like, no, that’s not really our goal or purpose for our display,” Nasheel says. “But in 2023, after being in the hospital for so long, and being diagnosed with cachexia and not really knowing how much longer I’d be alive, we decided to look into the show.”

They were first contacted by the show in June 2023 and auditioned by video in July.

Great Christmas Light Fight, Joules-Cornetti, McKinney, Christmas lights Nasheel and Mark looked festive for their video audition in July.Photo courtesy of Nasheel Joules

“In the audition, we had to look festive, with decorations behind us. We had to make sure to be fun and engaging, which we were,” Nasheel says. “But also, when the interviewers heard the story of why we do our display, we brought everyone to tears.”

They found out at the beginning of September that they were chosen for the show and that filming would be on December 3 and 4, 2023.

“We had so much to do to prepare, it was overwhelming,” Nasheel says. “Of course, with my health, I couldn't do much. And we’re usually a two-man show (me and Mark). So Mark got the neighbors involved in helping make new decorations for the roof, and assembling other new stuff. Mark was literally still doing some finishing touches on the display until 5 minutes before filming began.”

Filming the show was a lot of fun, they say, and in just two days together, host Taniya Nayak and the rest of the cast and crew became like family. In fact, when they wrapped up and said goodbye, the house felt empty. They’ve now had a year to reflect back on the surreal experience and will finally see the result on TV.

Great Christmas Light Fight, Joules-Cornetti, McKinney, Christmas lights Mark and Nasheel talk about their lights display with host Taniya Nayak.Photo courtesy of ABC

“What Mark and I loved most was getting to show our love for each other,” Nasheel says. “The producers really wanted to show our love story.”

The couple can’t disclose anything about the outcome. Their bigger focus now is making sure the lights are on for visitors to enjoy in person each day through New Year’s, and to meet their $10,000 fundraising goal for the American Heart Association.

“Our wish is that our display brings people closer to God and offers hope and joy,” Nasheel says. “For those who are saddened during the holidays because of tragedy or loss, we hope our display brings back hope and joy and the spirit of Christmas.”

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The Great Christmas Light Fight featuring the Joules-Cornetti family airs at 8 pm Thursday, December 5 on ABC. “The Gift of Light” display is at 8624 Palermo Way, McKinney. It runs nightly 5-11 pm, November 28-January 1; follow their Facebook page for updates and information on donating to The American Heart Association. For more information on local Christmas lights, go here and here.

Great Christmas Light Fight, Joules-Cornetti, McKinney, Christmas lights

Photo courtesy of ABC

The display is divided into sections.

christmas lights holiday attractions holiday decorating mckinney couple media abc charity holidays

Movie Review

Jennifer Lawrence plays overwrought mom in thriller Die My Love

Photo by Kimberley French/courtesy of MUBI

Jennifer Lawrence in Die My Love.

Writer/director Lynne Ramsay does not make feel-good movies. Her previous two films —You Were Never Really Here and We Need to Talk About Kevin — were about a traumatized veteran who tracks down missing girls for a living and parents reckoning with a child who might be a sociopath, respectively. Her latest, Die My Love, has a story as dark as its title.

Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) are a married couple who move into a run-down house that used to belong to Jackson’s uncle, who shot and killed himself on the property. That doesn’t exactly scream “great vibes,” but the somewhat manic duo quickly introduce a child into the equation, an event that forms a schism between two people who previously seemed to be on the same off-kilter wavelength.

While Jackson works to provide for the family, Grace is left to take care of the baby and herself at the somewhat remote house. She doesn’t appear to be a big fan of the arrangement, engaging in all manner of odd behavior, like crawling around the floor, talking to herself, and taking the baby on miles-long walks to visit her mother-in-law, Pam (Sissy Spacek), who’s not doing well herself after recently losing her husband, Harry (Nick Nolte).

Ramsay, who co-wrote the film with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, foregrounds Grace’s experience above all others, but the film is far from straightforward. The idea of post-partum depression is raised as a reason for Grace’s weird behavior, but as both she and Jackson are introduced as two people who skew to the “ab” side of normal, it’s difficult to say that everything she does is due to feelings that arise after giving birth.

Plus, Grace has plenty to be upset about in general, including living in a death house, being left alone with their child the majority of the time, and Jackson bringing home a yapping dog without even so much as a conversation. But the manifestation of her anger/depression is hard to parse, as Ramsay includes scenes of her carrying around a butcher knife, meeting up with a mysterious figure on a motorcycle, and other strange things that may or may not actually be happening.

There is clearly a lot of metaphorical work being done by seemingly random things like the reappearance of a black horse on multiple occasions, blaring rock music that accompanies several scenes, and the use of the 1x1 aspect ratio by Ramsay. It’s easy to feel the intensity of the film’s central relationship and their conflicts even if you can’t make heads or tails of the allusions that the filmmaker seems to love.

Lawrence is put through the wringer almost as much as she was in Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!, and her performance is one that can be felt strongly. Still, because the narrative is unclear, she often appears to be overwrought in certain scenes. Pattinson never fits well with his uncaring and/or oblivious character. Spacek makes a nice impression in a limited amount of screen time, but why Ramsay chose to use the ultra-talented LaKeith Stanfield in the nothing part of the motorcycle rider is baffling.

Those who love to dig into symbolism and non-linear storytelling will have a field day with the arty Die My Love. But for everyone else, anything Ramsay might have been trying to say about the difficulties of being a mother gets buried under many scenes that don’t make any logical sense and over-the-top acting that’s only fit to match the bizarreness of the film itself.

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Die My Love is now playing in theaters.

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