HOLYOKE — On Wednesday evening, Holyoke veteran Kurt Bluemer arrived home to twinkling white lights lining the porch rail, roof and bushes outside his house and a prominent wreath hanging from the top window.

The decorations were hung earlier that day courtesy of the holiday decorating company Christmas Decor, which installs surprise light displays at the homes of nominated military families, with the hope of spreading holiday cheer to those experiencing heartache, loss or grief.

“It’s awesome,” Bluemer said, looking at the lights display.

Bluemer was active in the U.S. Coast Guard for 13 years before ending his military career to care for and spend time with his mother, Connie Bluemer, who had stage 4 cancer.

“She loved Christmas,” Bluemer said. “She wanted to make it to Christmas, and she made it to Christmas Eve night last year.”

“She would be very happy and impressed by this,” he said, adding that growing up, his family always decorated a real tree and woke up to presents on Christmas Day.

Christmas Decor, a nationwide franchise with a Springfield chapter, holds its Decorated Family Program each year.

“What it’s promoting is to help bring the Christmas spirit back to a household that is in need of it, whether they have a member of their families or a friend that’s active in the military, was active, or went through some hard time,” said Springfield Divisional Manager Alex Arsenault.

“This is the first year that Kurt and his family are going to be experiencing the holidays without his mother… so we decided that we were going to go forward and pursue this opportunity to help bring back the holiday cheer to Kurt and his family this year,” Arsenault said.

Arsenault began by creating designs on his laptop using basic software, then on Wednesday at 9 a.m. arrived on-site with the team to install the decorations.

Christmas Decor absorbs all labor and product costs, which would typically average around $2,500 to $3,000.

Maddie Fabian can be reached at mfabian@gazettenet.com.