The Live Grinch is back for Tacky Lights season!

For the first time in three years, Brett Aliotti, also known as the Live Grinch, will be donning his big red suit and Grinch mask to greet visitors and pose for pictures outside his brightly decorated house at 1411 Pennyslvania Ave. in Glen Allen.

“I love putting smiles on people’s faces. It gives everybody such joy,” Aliotti said.

The Live Grinch has become a Richmond tradition at the holidays and on the Tacky Lights tour.

It all started when Aliotti was watching the news one morning around Halloween. The host was at Premiere Costumes, formerly located in Carytown, and Aliotti spied a Grinch mask in the background.

“My eyes lit up. I thought, ‘I gotta have that,’” Aliotti said. “I went there and bought it. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. I had the Santa suit already.”

He had already been decorating his home in Glen Allen for the holidays for over 10 years.

“I thought, ‘Well, I’ll dress up as the Grinch and see what everybody thinks,” Aliotti said.

That was 20 years ago.

“People seemed to like it. And then it got bigger and bigger every year,” he said.

Aliotti will be dressing up as the Live Grinch on the following Friday and Saturday nights in December: Dec. 1-2, Dec. 8-9, Dec. 15-16 and Dec. 22-23 from 7-9 p.m., weather permitting.

People like to stop and look at his brightly decorated house with over 40,000 lights and pose for selfies with the Live Grinch.

Aliotti, 59, paused the Live Grinch during the pandemic, due to safety concerns. It’s been three years since he donned his red Santa suit and Grinch mask.

“Everybody’s been asking if I’m doing the Grinch this year. People are real excited about it. I’ve had people come visit since they were babies,” Aliotti said.

The Live Grinch’s house will be extra bright this year. “I bought new decorations and new lights. Gave it a little makeover to make things special for the Grinch appearance after being out for three years,” Aliotti said.

When he’s not donning the Grinch mask, Aliotti is a truck driver and wakes up every morning at 3 a.m. to drive to Hopewell every day, delivering wood chips to the Dominion Energy power plant. Aliotti is married with one daughter and two grandchildren.

He’s been decorating his house since Halloween to get it ready.

“I’m hustling every day to get it together,” he said. “I have people drive here from Charlottesville, Virginia Beach and North Carolina. People come here from all over the world. I’ve had people from Germany and China.”

Last year, Aliotti said he met a couple from South Carolina who drove up and rented a motel room, just to see the Tacky Lights of Richmond.

“They said they don’t decorate in South Carolina. Not like in Richmond. This is the place to go,” Aliotti said.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has been compiling Richmond’s definitive Tacky Lights tour list for over 30 years. It’s a do-it-yourself tour where you pick a few houses on the list and drive by to see the lights. The Tacky Light tour is free and open to the public.

Or you can rent a limo, rent a seat on a Winn bus or even hop on a trolley if you want someone else to do the driving.

Houses must have 40,000 lights to be on the list. Go to https://richmond.com/exclusive/tacky-lights/ if you’d like to nominate your house.

An updated list will run in the Weekend section and online every Thursday. Tacky Lights season runs through New Year’s Eve.

Go to Richmond.com/exclusive/tacky-lights to see the full list of houses, pictures and a handy map.