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Below are some videos from our first ever Christmas light show. After years of talking about it, we finally took the plunge into creating a computer-controlled Christmas light show. Using a Light-O-Rama controller, lights, and thousands of feet of extension cords, we created our first animated Christmas display. Actually, work on the display began early in 2011 when I received the controller for my birthday. Next, we purchased an fm transmitter (so that we could broadcast the audio to viewers), rope light snowflakes for the house, and we began building the lighted Christmas trees that  serve as the focal point of our display. Currently, our show includes just 16 channels and a few thousand lights. Next year we hope to add more lights to the existing channels (especially on the roof and house) and include a video display. A few years down the road we’ll probably add another controller and another 16 channels.

For our first attempt we did great. Each night we had the show on, cars stopped by on a regular basis to view our creation. We also won first place in the neighborhood light decorating contest. Of course, this just means that we have to put on a bigger and better show next year! No problem. We now have all the key components in place and we have established a good workflow for getting the display up and creating new animated sequences.

Above is the Light-O-Rama Controller we used for our light display.