The Light before Christmas
Now this is cool! My sister emailed this to me.
The Light Before ChristmasOrigins: A video clip shows home Christmas lights synchronized to flash in time to a musical score, in this case Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizard in Winter" (from The Lost Christmas Eve album).
This display was the work of Carson Williams, a Mason, Ohio, electrical engineer who spent about three hours sequencing the 88 Light-O-Rama channels that controlled the 16,000 Christmas lights in his annual holiday lighting spectacular (from Christmas 2004). His 2005 display includes over 25,000 lights that he spent nearly two months and $10,000 to hook up. So that the Williams' neighbors aren't disturbed by constant noise, viewers driving by the house are informed by signs to tune in to a signal broadcast over a low-power FM radio station to hear the musical accompaniment.
The rough quality of the video has led some viewers to believe it was put together in stop-action form from still photographs, but that is an artifact of the high compression used in the clip circulated via e-mail. Mr. Williams has posted instructions for recreating his "Wizard in Winter" sequencing. Videos can be seen here: http://www.msftlabrat.com/funstuff/jingle.wmv and here: http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/daytondailynews/video/christmaslights.wmv
Update: After a 6 December 2005 traffic accident in his neighborhood, Carson Williams agreed to indefinitely discontinue his 2005 Christmas light display because it was causing severe traffic congestion problems.
http://www.snopes.com/photos/arts/xmaslights.asp
Last updated: 7 December 2005