Tuesday - December 06, 2005

Christmas Lights

Surely by now you’ve heard the story about this amazing house and the mind-boggling Christmas light show. No? What, have you been hiding under a rock for the last month? This is what happens when you turn an electrical engineer loose with thousands of Christmas lights, his house, a friendly local FM radio station and all of the above programmed in perfect sync with music from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. For those in the St. Louis area, the Trans Siberian Orchestra will be in town December 23 at the Savvis Center and tickets are available at TicketMaster.

- View the video of the light show here (turn up the volume real loud) ...

25,000 Lights Dance To Music
DEERFIELD, Ohio (USATODAY)

Is it Christmas overkill or an ultra-cool holiday display? Anyone who drives past the Williams house on Winding Creek Court will have an opinion. Carson Williams’ two-story home is decorated top to bottom with 25,000 Christmas lights - but that’s just the beginning. He used software to program them to 12 minutes of Christmas music. The result is a dancing display of synchronized lights that he says you have to see to believe.

“We had about 300 cars on Friday,” said Carson, 40. “The farthest we’ve had was Michigan. They knew someone in Loveland and they were coming through and stopped to see it.” According to PlanetChristmas.com and other Web sites, light-show technology is becoming more popular. There are even instructions on how to set up a display with Light-O-Rama software.

But a show of this magnitude is still rare enough that Williams has received calls from across the country, including the “Today” show, which is interviewing the family live this morning. “We just can’t stop smiling,” said his wife, Sherry, 39. This is the third year for the show, which gets bigger every season. It took Williams about three hours to program each minute of music.

Williams broadcasts the music from a low-power transmitter in his computer to an FM radio station. A sign tells passers-by to tune in. An electrical engineer for Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions, Williams said it was time consuming, but worth it. The Internet rocketed the two-story house to instant cyberfame after Williams posted the 2004 light show in February.

It’s been a wild ride for the couple and their two children, Amanda, 10, and Brittney, 11. “Inside Edition” is scheduled to film a segment this afternoon. Miller Brewing Company spent about seven hours Thursday filming footage for an upcoming commercial. “They put fake snow in the yard,” Sherry Williams said.

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra - whose music is featured in the light show - invited the family to attend its Cleveland performance Saturday where they received VIP treatment. “I’m overwhelmed. I am just beside myself,” Sherry Williams said. As of Sunday morning Williams’ original Web site had gotten 848,000 hits and had been picked up by a host of others.

People are pouring into his neighborhood to check it out. By 5 p.m. Sunday - an hour before showtime - cars were already starting to line the street. By 6 p.m., traffic was bumper to bumper. “What time is the light show?” called out two Indianapolis residents on their way to a party in Cincinnati.

- Read the rest of this amazing story here ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 12/06/2005 at 12:50 PM   
Filed Under: • Odd-Strange •  
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