IREDELL COUNTY, N.C. — Roughly 40 minutes north of Charlotte is where you’ll find tigers, giraffes, and even a few kangaroos. These and hundreds of other animals are located in Troutman at Zootastic Park.

Ten months out of the year, people come for the animals, but the last two months are all about the Christmas lights. 

“We have a lot of families that come here,” co-owner Kimberly Brown said. “They come here once, and they make it their tradition.” 

While Brown handles the day-to-day operations and the large gift shop, Scott Brettin is the man that handles the Christmas light show. He’s been doing this job for over a decade.

“It takes me a month to put it together…to get it set up and probably about three days to do the addressing,” he said. “You have to address all the light bulbs out there. You’ve got to know where they’re at in the program and tell the program where the light bulbs are and when you want them to turn on.” 

Stony Welborn is the man who drives through the entire zoo turning on all the lights. He does this every night from early November until New Year's.

“It’s a lot of manpower and a lot of hours,” Brown said. “The guys work morning, noon and night, to get the lights set up and the roads…make sure they are right and the gravel’s all set." 

The park is transformed into a winter wonderland with over four million lights. 

Even though it’s a lot of work to maintain the zoo, everyone involved knows it's all worth it when visitors walk away happy. 

“It makes me proud that people come here and when they leave here they’re like 'oh this place is magical and we’re having such a great time and we’ll be back.' It’s just a really great feeling,” Brown said.

The Zoo’s Christmas wonderland of lights is open every night from now until New Years.

Admission is $8 a person, which includes driving through and walking around the zoo to see the light show.  

You can find more information about the light show here.