Family gets special Christmas surprise
TOPEKA (KSNT) - Erik Oldberg is the owner of Topeka Holiday Lights. For the last six years, he and his team have given houses that special glow for Christmas. However, this year one family and house have come to mean a lot more to him. That's because the connection between the two is unlike any other.
"In November of '21, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. And right after I was diagnosed, I had a friend, Dan, who was also diagnosed with the exact same stage and type of cancer. So, we kind of went through that cancer journey together," Oldberg said.
With the two seeing each other at least once a week, Dan Wiggs and Oldberg went through chemo, radiation and multiple surgeries together. Despite a hard-fought battle, Dan Wiggs lost his fight with cancer in April. To honor his lost friend, Oldberg decided to do something special for Wiggs' family this Christmas season.
"My son came home. He saw someone on the roof and he's like, 'Mom what's going on, there's people here.' We were trying to, like [figure it out], do you see a truck, do you see a person, do you know the person? And he didn't know them, and I was, like, we'll figure it out when I get home," Dan Wiggs' wife Amy Wiggs said.
"We decided we would just go ahead and do their Christmas lights, do the full design. We didn't tell her. I had some friends kind of find out what she wanted color wise, and we ended up doing that," Oldberg said.
Oldberg didn't think of these lights all on his own. Last year, it was something he and Dan Wiggs had talked about. Now, after everything they've gone through, it means more than anything for Amy Wiggs and her kids.
"It was not something I expected," Amy Wiggs said. "It's something I've always dreamed of the house looking like. I guess before Dan passed, he was talking to Erik last year about putting the lights up and trying to get something special for me because I really liked the lights. And so that just meant a ton that he was kind of honoring Dan's request and Dan's memory with this surprise for us."
This random act of kindness isn't going to be the last for Oldberg and Topeka Holiday Lights. They plan to keep Dan Wiggs' legacy alive through lights for years to come.
"Over the next however many years we can do it, we'll have people essentially nominate a family that is affected by cancer and we'll pick them and they get to basically get their home completely decorated to honor Dan and his family as well," Oldberg said.