Growing up my Mom was our family’s Christmas nut. Sneaking out decorations way too soon and putting lights on the house. My dad was certain that she was going to fall through the ceiling while rooting around in the attic. So when we saw Chevy Chase fall through the attic in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation it became an instant family favorite. My Mom started her love of Christmas lights growing up on a northern Pennsylvania dairy farm where she and her 6 sisters loved to gaze at a string of colored lights they used to decorate their home.

I have memories of pushing the cart while Mom cleared Christmas lights off the shelves at K-Mart during post-Christmas sales, and of watching her climb the very steep pitched room of our A-frame home to line it with lights. Her dedication to hanging the lights paid off when people would drive from miles around to our middle-of-nowhere home in Pennsylvania just to admire her lights.

Mom was partial to multi-colored lights. Big ones, C9’s.

1999 was the year we moved to Massachusetts and the first year we got to deck our house out in Christmas lights. All the lights were white incandescent except for the wreath that was multicolor. Our neighbor kept adding lights through the season and each time she did we would add more to stay ahead of her.

Now, the neighbors across the street from us had just moved in from Texas and they had some Christmas Cacti in their yard that we really liked, and this was the inspiration for our Christmas Cactus that has been the focal point of our light display since 2000.

This was our first home in Austin, Texas where we started our family. The cactus can be seen here with white rope lights. The cactus is just a wireframe cactus that we picked up from a local roadside shop. When we saw it we remembered how much we liked our neighbors cacti back in Massachusetts so it was a must have. Everything at this house was done with incandescent lights and we added to it each year.

2010 was the first year we did an animated light show. I stared with 2 16-channel Lightorama controllers and 14,260 LED lights. “Let it Snow” by Bing Crosby was the first song I sequenced. We did a test show for Halloween with 2 songs. We tuned in the sequencing better for our Christmas show that we kicked off the day after Thanksgiving. Someone took a video of the house and it got 64K hits overnight. We were surprised to see our house on Bill O’Reilly’s pinheads or patriots segment and even more surprised by the high-traffic that followed.

YouTube playlist of full 2010 show (7 songs)

YouTube Press Playlist - Our first year we were on the local news, ABC’s GMA, CNN, and Fox.

2011 was our last year in Round Rock, Texas. The favorite song this year was "Angry Birds" by Pomplamoose. Jimmy Kimmel even picked up the video and did a spoof of it on his late-night show. This was also the year I started experimenting with K-Pop with 2NE1 and SNSD.

Youtube playlist of 2011 show

In 2012 we moved to Cedar Park, TX in September so I had to scramble to get the light show pulled together. The kids were exercising to Gangnam Style in school so we sequenced it to lights and the video went viral (5 million views). This was the year we learned too much press can be a bad thing. At the time the neighborhood was mostly under construction so it wasn’t too bad and our neighbors have been very supportive and patient.

2012 Press Reel Playlist

2012 Full Show Playlist

2013 – Full Show Playlist – Cactus gets first 100 pixels

2014 is the year our Frozen video went viral with 8.5 million views and was covered widely in the press. We added 1,625 pixel lights to our treeline that added color. I also started using the xLights software to generate really cool effects and then imported them into Lightorama where I was still doing most of my sequencing.

2014 Full Show Playlist

2014 Press Reel (Sunrise Australia, CNN, Today, GMA, ABC Nightline, …), Press Montage

2015 Full Show Playlist

After a few years of viral light shows we took the year off in 2016 and decorated my Mom’s house in northern Pennsylvania instead. She had been wanting an animated light show for a while. In 2017 we decorated with lights, but didn’t run a show since we were busy chasing our oldest daughter through a busy Junior year in high school band. Lesson: family is more important than lights.

Year after year staring with 2017 we have been adding more and more pixels and snowflakes to the display. I’ve also fully transitioned off of lightorama software and over to xlights. While I still have lightorama boxes in the display I rely on the Falcon F16v3 pixel controller. We avoid the press now and instead focus on giving our neighbors a magical Christmas experience. Instead of lines of cars outside our neighbors and friends bring over their camp chairs on holiday weekends and we enjoy the lights together as a community. I personally find this a much more enjoyable experience.

This is also when my oldest daughter added her first sequence to the show with the Miser Brothers.

2018 Full Show Playlist

2019 Full Show Playlist

2020 was an unconventional year. It also marked 10 years since we did our first synchronized light show. With no where to go I spent my free time working on the Christmas show instead of worrying about COVID or politics. In March when things were looking pretty tense I put the deer in the yard and had them perform a light show for the neighbors. Things still hadn’t gotten back to normal for our Christmas show so instead of enjoying viewing parties together with neighbors and friends in front of the house, we put the music on an FM transmitter and let the songs loop so people could enjoy the show from the comfort and safety of their cars.

2020 Full Christmas Show Playlist

2020 Full Covid Show Playlist