Our Story
Twenty-six years of animated Christmas lights — how it all began.
A Little History
Both of us are big on Christmas. Mary likes the shopping, baking, and interior decorating, and Greg always wanted a big outdoors Christmas like his grandfather's displays. Once we purchased our first house in 2001, Greg got a chance to work on that display and experimented with animated displays controlled by a computer. That year Greg built two parallel port controllers that could control 8 circuits each. These were simple to build and control, but didn't provide much growth potential.
For 2002, Greg started in January trying to find a design that would allow us to control many more circuits without purchasing expensive Digital I/O boards used by a few others around the United States. After a bit of searching, he found Hill Robertson's design for a 320-circuit device that could be controlled by a parallel port, and spent much of the year building our own version. At the time the device was rather amazing and allowed up to 320 AC circuits to be switched on and off using a single parallel port on a PC.
In 2008, we purchased some Light-o-Rama CTB08 controllers. Although each device only controlled 8 AC circuits, they were the first solution we ever had that allowed for dimming. This opened up a completely new world as we could cross-fade between colors in the display. Although LOR solutions are a bit on the expensive side compared to other do-it-yourself solutions, they remain a great way to get started on your own animated Christmas light display. (Greg, being who he is, refused to purchase the LOR software and instead reverse-engineered the protocol and continued to run custom software.)
By 2014, it was finally time to retire the 320 Controller. We invested heavily in DIY DMX and E1.31 solutions. As we moved to this new technology, we also started converting to pixels — allowing each individual light to be individually controlled, bringing a whole new world of possibilities. In 2016, we retired the last of the LOR controllers. 2016 also marked the year we converted from custom software to xLights, a great open-source project created by the holiday lighting community. And 2016 finally marked the year Greg gave in to the family demands and started synchronizing the lights to music played over a low-power FM transmitter — mostly because xLights was so easy to use that both Mary and the kids could help with programming the lights.
The Star
The odd-looking object on the right has been passed through the Hormann family for generations. No matter which direction you look at it from, you can always see a 5-point star! Made entirely of copper and colored glass, this one-of-a-kind decoration weighs a ton. The Star was designed and built by Greg's great-great uncle and given to his grandfather to be hung outside their Fort Wayne home, where it was placed every Christmas for many years. Upon his passing, the Star was given to Greg's father, who presented it to Greg in 1998.
Greg's grandparents always hung the Star outside on the porch until the year it disappeared while they were attending church. After placing articles in the local paper explaining the family significance of the star, it mysteriously reappeared a few days later. Since that incident, the Star is now proudly displayed every Thanksgiving through New Year's in our front window.
Some References
For those interested in creating their own computer-controlled Christmas light displays, here are the resources we've found most valuable over the years:
- CoolDisplays.net
- Looking for impressive holiday displays near you? CoolDisplays.net is a great tool for locating holiday displays across the United States.
- DoItYourselfChristmas.com
- Our de-facto source for keeping up with others who do computer-controlled Christmas light displays. The forums are a great resource for learning about the hobby.
- DiyLightAnimation · FalconChristmas · xLights Forum
- Community-based websites with good information for those interested in different aspects of computer-controlled Christmas displays.
- PixelController.com · Kulp Lights · Holiday Coro · Boscoyo Studios · Light-O-Rama
- Really interested in creating your own animated displays but unsure where to start? These vendors offer both the hardware and software you need to control your lights and set them to music. These are the vendors we've primarily leveraged and know to be reliable.
- Planet Christmas
- The original home of computer-controlled Christmas lights. Chuck Smith was the father of the hobby and a key driver in making it so popular.
Technology
Our giant pixel countdown clock — now 7,000+ RGB pixels.
Two animated snowmen having a snowball fight — now 13,000 RGB pixels.
A massive walk-through tunnel of RGB pixels — the largest single element in our display.
An 18ft × 8ft RGB pixel grid of 4,876 individually controlled pixels mounted over the front door.
How RGB pixels and the E1.31 protocol replaced AC circuits in our display.
Text your first name to have it displayed on the 18ft × 8ft grid during the show.
Viewers vote for the next song via a mobile-friendly website.
A 12ft wide P10 panel display showing real-time power usage, radio station, and viewer interaction info.
How to build a simple 8-circuit controller using solid state relays and a parallel port — the original controller used in 2001.
The Hill-Robertson design for controlling up to 320 individually switchable circuits from a parallel port.