This year's TMT Farms Christmas lights drive-thru display is set to shine nightly for a month, beginning at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, while TMT patriarch Roy Thompson recovers from a recent stroke and with the season dedicated in memory of Deborah Thompson.

The planned times and dates of the display are 6 p.m.–1 a.m., Nov. 27 through Dec. 27. The exhibit stretches along farm roads, with the central address 16710 Old River Road North in northern Bulloch County.

As always, the display has no admission charge except a requested donation of long-shelf-life canned or packaged food items; a new, unwrapped toy for a child who might not have many; pet food for the animal shelter; or cash that will be used to purchase gift cards for families or individuals with emergency needs.

Deborah and Roy Thompson, married for 57 years and owners of the successful small business Statesboro Floor Covering, started the holiday tradition for the wider community more than 25 years ago. Their daughter Jennifer Thompson McCranie, their son Tyler Thompson and their spouses and children have made it a family effort. With help from friends and, some years, volunteers from various organizations, they began months early each year to transform the family farm into a Christmas wonderland.

Through many in-kind donations and special purchases over the years, the two-mile-long exhibit became a mix of sacred and secular Christmas classics, Americana and local history — the nativity scenes keeping Christ in Christmas — but also antique farm equipment, wagons, sleighs, Santas, inflatable animals, mannequins and replicas of historical Bulloch County landmarks such as Snooky's restaurant, Henry's barbershop and the vanished Pav-a-lon and pool from the mid-20th century Fair Road Park.

As long as both were able, Roy and Deborah Thompson went on excursions to obtain new or repurposed decorations.

Just last season, when Mr. Roy said, "We have added so much that we just encourage people to come out to see. If you like Christmas, please come. …," Mrs. Deborah encouraged him to add that if anyone didn't like Christmas, "Come anyway, we'll change your mind."

'Our Christmas angel'

So they had one more season together, but Deborah Thompson was in a battle with cancer. She died at age 76 on July 17, 2025.

"She loved Christmas more than anyone and she wanted it to continued. So, this year, the TMT Farm Christmas Lights Drive-Thru will be in memory of Deborah," stated a Facebook post with a picture of her, the "TMT Farm matriarch" between a Santa and a snowman in early October. "She was a wife, a mom, a nana, a good friend to many and now she is our Christmas angel."

Of course, there scarcely could have been any doubt that this dedication would occur.

Roy Thompson, who for 20 years through 2024 served on the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners, including as chairman for the last eight years, shared some of his grief with the public. On social media, he has posted photos from good times with his late wife and delighted in visits from old friends

He also continued preparations for the 2025 Christmas season, including finalizing a deal to obtain the Christmas light displays that were previously set up each year on the grounds of Guido Gardens in Metter. The landscaped grounds of the Guido Evangelistic Association, which included the longtime home of evangelist Dr. Michael Guido, who died in 2009 at age 94, and his wife, Audrey, who died in 2010, annually hosted "Nights of Lights" for decades.

Guido Ministries, which now operates a Bible college, a prison ministry and other programs, had also carried on Nights of Lights, but made Christmas 2023 the last season. Obtained not as a free gift but at a deeply discounted cost, Guido Gardens' at least 65 to 75 displays "of all kinds of shapes and sizes," as Tyler Thompson described them, will now be visible to the public again, but in Bulloch County instead of Candler.

The Guido Gardens figures — such as praying hands and trumpeting angels — lined a walk-thru experience, but at TMT Farms they become part of what remains, for safety reasons, a drive-thru-only experience. Most will be grouped near the front entrance.

Also not new but returning, what McCranie called "the dancing house," an animated display structure, will be back at TMT Farms after a two-year hiatus, and Tanger Outlets recently handed down some extra decorations, including a 35-foot Christmas tree.

Mr. Roy hospitalized

The rest of the story is, Roy Thompson was hospitalized all last week, from Nov. 17, after experiencing a stroke. Tyler Thompson said that his father, who had previously had a pacemaker put in, was experiencing some dizzy spells and confusion.

But his son and daughter both said he has recovered some and was set to be transferred Monday from East Georgia Regional Medical Center to the "swing-bed" transitional care program at Candler County Hospital.

"They're taking him over to rehab today in Metter for 10 to 14 days to try to get his strength up. …," Tyler Thompson said on the phone Monday. "He's ready to get over there and get better." 

While hoping that his father will be able to come home after a couple of weeks to continue his recovery at the farm, the second-generation Thompson was pushing forward with the family's holiday project, honoring his mother. They had actually started putting the structures, figures and lights in place the first week of July, and after a week's pause to mourn, returned to the work in their available time.

"We've been out here seven days a week, and we're out here in my front yard now finishing up some stuff," Thompson said. "We'll have the lights open, for sure."