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December 13, 2007 - UPDATE

Garret finished syncing a song for me and it is up and running. There are now two songs: Christmas Vacation and Christmas Eve-Sarajevo by TSO.

Also, uploaded 2 vidoes, one of Christmas Vacation playing on my house and the other of Garret's house which uses 2 Mr. Christmas control boxes. Video of the Garrets song now listed. Also be sure to check out Garret's house too. See Maps.

December 7, 2007

Just so everyone knows:

Display runs from Now thru January 5th
From 4:30PM - 11:30PM with extended hours on Christmas eve and day.

Don't forget to tune your radio to 105.3FM

Also, thanks to my Rival Allie Garret, he is synchronizing a song for me, so hopefully I will have another song within a week. Looks like we are joining forces next year.

Garret also was kind enough to take some video of my display. I will be posting it as well as his display video on the site soon.

December 4, 2007

Its been a busy year. I have two jobs now, so one might image my Christmas display would suffer, but it is bigger then ever. Over the last few months I have had to put well over 100 hours into this. In the last 4 days I have only had about 10 hours sleep total. I may have been a little late getting it up, but hey Thanksgiving did come at least a week early this year and I lost some Christmas planning to the largest Halloween display I have every had, building a graveyard and an army of skeletons takes a lot of time. I was up last night until 5:00am synchronizing the song Christmas vacation so it would be set for tonight.

INFO: This years stats are quite impressive. 36,000 lights on my house, plus another 4000+ or so on my neighbors house for a total of over 40,000 lights. I have to have over a mile of extension cord by now.

Last year I had 32 computer controlled circuits, but this year it jumped to 96 circuits, so the lights can really be manipulated in a lot of different ways.

Music is being broadcast on an FM transmitter via 105.3FM, so come check out the display and keep warm in your car, set your radio and enjoy.

I only have 1 song done currently, but I hope to add 1 or 2 more songs throughout December so check back here on feel free to drive by. Synchronizing a song usually takes me about 2.5 hours per minute of song because every flicker is hand configured to a tenth of a second with the music. You end up with a great looking display because you designed lighting events to the music.

With the knock-off product Mr. Chris, aka musical light show in a box, you get some flashing lights to music, but not anything custom, plus I would imagine that it would blow up if you plugged 40,000 lights into it. Mr. Christmas is ok for someone with little time on their hands, or don't want to spend the insane amount of money I do.

If your wondering about how I control the lights, theirs info on the website from last year, but the direct site is www.lightorama.com

When all the lights are on, over 100AMPS of power are used. I did add about 2000 LED lights this year, which take 95% less power. They even look better so next year I might make a complete switchover to LED, so if you want a lot of regular lights at a cheap price contact me. This year I also added 18 LED flood lights, so that I can flood the house in Red, Blue, or Green.

ARCH RIVAL - For the past few years my display has been growing and last year I computerized for the first time and right behind me has been a teenage boy, Garret. We do battle at both Christmas and Halloween and I think our battle of the displays has spilled out to other people in the neighborhood. Many houses seem to be doing more and I actually saw 3 or 4 Mr. Christmas devices being used in the neighborhood, Garret included. Its people like Garret and others that are keeping me on my toes. I am at work right now on my dinner hour updating the site and my Mom called to say everything was up and running and she mentioned that Garret rode by on his bike. I can remember at least a dozen times I have seen him ride by during set up, or both Christmas and Halloween, but I am guilty of the same driving by his house almost every day, but in the competitive world of holiday displays, spying is essential.

GOT SNOW? Theres snow on my front lawn, but many of you are wondering, hey ours melted in the rain, well thats true, but the night before the real snow, I had covered my lawn with 2 inches of snow with my snow machine. Snow, just another way to keep ahead of the competition. In case your wondering: www.snowathome.com

I haven't had a chance to update anything else on the site, but feel free to browse around last years videos, pictures, and other stuff.

I don't know how up to date my bio is on the about me page so here:
Christopher Hearns
23 years old
3 classes away from Bachelors degree in Computer Networking and Security from Davenport University
Work at Clinton-Macomb Public Library Main Branch in Circulation
Work at Rochester Hills Public Library in IT
Brother Justin, Mom Carol, Dad Michael
Hobbies include Golf, being outdoors, Firework displays in the Summer - get me a permit and pay me and I will set up a professional looking fireworks show.

December 27, 2006 Hope everyone who has visted has enjoyed the show, for those of you who haven't made it yet, don't worry there is still time. The display up will be until Janurary 5th.

December 6, 2006 Featured on Fox 2 News

December 2, 2006 Added videos and pictures of the display. Click the display videoes or display pictures link directly below.

November 27, 2006 Christmas display is up as of Thanksgiving

Come on by and enjoy the show and tell your friends

Show running 5:00pm - 11:15pm
Tune radio to 105.3 FM

Click map page for help finding the display

Hope to have pictures and video up in a week or two

Christmas is a hobby of mine. It is a magically time of the year for many people and my goal is to make it even more magical by putting up an amazing christmas light display.

In past years I have had about 20,000 lights, but this year I am computerizing my entire display. What that means is that I will have the lights dancing to christmas music. The music will be broadcast using an FM transmitter, so the passerby only needs to tune their car radio to the correct station, 105.3 FM.

The main purpose of this site will be to document my display and to act as a resource in helping others computerize their light displays.