How it Started

 

Michael (our son, 9 years old in 2006) was still recovering from Leukemia so he was home bound a good part of the time and one day back in December 2006 Michael was watching the Carson Williams video of Wizards in Winter on youtube.com and he looked up at me smiled and said....."You can do that Dad, can't you?" I replied it would take me some time to research and build it. well..that was what I did. I tried to build my own controller which was not so hard of a project I found a website Do It Yourself Christmas and bought a controller kit but I was having trouble spending the time needed to get this project online before Christmas 2007, so I started to search the internet again and I found Light-O-Rama & Wowlights, I purchased most of my equipment from wowlights.com by late 2007 I was ready for my 1st attempt. I was happy with the results so happy with it, I left them on way after New Years and Linda was asking me in early February to put my toys away. and with that I did. And all winter, spring and summer I was thinking on how I was going to make 2008 even better.

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How the Lights Stole Christmas Story

 

*I spent all of 2007 assembling controllers and sequencing the music (I never told anybody I was doing this) and in late November 2007 Linda asked me what I needed for the Christmas lights for the season I told her I needed 30-100 strands of mini-white lights, 10-100 bulbs in Red, Blue, Green and 20-100 bulb Multi's and 16-50ft extension cords and...at this time she looked at me like I was nuts and I took her outside and explained what I did and she said, "Oh, great....We're the Griswold's" I reminded her of what Michael asked me last year so I explained in detail how it works and that weekend as I was installing the system Linda was "coming on board" with the concept and gave many suggestions and helped install the system, all this without Michael knowing what we were doing, It was fantastic watching the whole show come together for the first time. I spent many hours after Michael went to bed and sat in my car and watched the lights blink to the music, that's when I knew this was no longer a hobby, its an obsession :)

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I only recorded 2 of my videos 

 

In 2007 my system was just 16 channels, if you look at the 2007 videos I believe I could have used that configuration for the next decade....but In June 2008 Light-O-Rama was having their summer sale so I purchased 3 more controllers for a total of 64 Channels for 2008, since I am into electronics I did purchase the controller kits and assembled and did the soldering of the circuit boards. For the time involved I should have spent the extra $15.00 per controller and got them fully assembled. my advice is to buy them already assembled.The software is from Light-O-Rama too. you need to program the music called Sequences into the software and set it to sync with the music. I did Wizards in Winter and that song alone took me 100's of hours to program. I have gotten better and faster and since I did that song and  all the others so my light show is very busy.

2007 my music was

1) Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer by Clint Black

2) Step into Christmas by Elton John

3) Mr. Snow/Mr. Heat Miser (Christmas Special)

4) Sleigh Ride by The Boston Pops

5) Jingle Bell Rock by Hilary Duff

6) Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree by Brenda Lee

7) Jingle Bells by Brian Setzer

8) God  Rest Ye Merry Gentleman by Mannheim Steamroller

9) Christmas Eve Sarajevo by TSO

10) Mad Russian's Christmas by TSO

11) Wizards in Winter by TSO