Well, with all the rain we’ve had over the past 2 days and the technical problems it causes (because I didn’t wrap my exposed plugs!) we’ve decided to just shut the show down for the season a day earlier than expected. We will not be running tonight or on New Years’ Eve as we originally intended.

Thank you to all of our neighbors – for tolerating my insanity and the mini traffic jams.

Thank you to all who stopped by to see the lights.

Thank you for all ofthe email and comments.

Thank you for believing in the spirit of Christmas!

See ya next year!

- The Vader Family

It’s been fun trying to keep up with all the little things that can go wrong with a large Christmas light display… strings of lights that go out, broken bulbs, broken yard stakes, lights falling off the house, wind blowing everything around – but most of those are easy fixes.

Last night, however, the heart of my background show, my Light Flurries box, blew its motor I’ve asked around on a couple of the local enthusiats boards with the hope that someone happens to have a spare on lying around, but I don’t have my hopes up. So I’m pretty bummed that on of my favorite parts of the show has come to a halt. This is the machine that creates the affect of snow falling on our house.
I’ll probably just remove my pre and post shows which rely heavily on the Light Flurries box – and just run the full show for an hour earlier and shut it down an hour earlier to make up for the loss.

Many people have wondered what the heck ‘that french song’ in the middle of our light show is all about. If you don’t know the origin of the song (or french) then it seems like we just through a Brittany Spears tune into the show just to drive everyone mad However, it really is a Christmas tune – albeit a modern rendition by a french artist.

Vive le vent is the French version of Jingle Bells. They are sung to the same tune, but the translation given here for Vive le vent is the literal translation of the French Christmas carol, which is completely different than the English carol Jingle Bells.

The version used in our show is a modern rendition recorded by the French singer, Jacsynthe. Jacynthe Millette-Bilodeau (born September 13, 1979) is a Québécois pop singer who records as Jacynthe. She records material in English, French and Italian, and has had Top 40 hits on both the anglophone and francophone pop charts in Canada.

Jacynthe is best known amongst adults for starring, along with Anne-Marie Losique, in the Québécois version of the reality show The Simple Life, called La Vie Rurale. In 2006 she toured with the Cirque du Soleil in their very first arena tour, Delirium. She left the show in May. She appears on the show’s album, scheduled for a June 2006 release.

VIVE LE VENT

Vive le vent, vive le vent,
vive le vent d’hiver
qui s’en va sifflant, soufflant
dans les grands sapins verts.
Vive le temps, vive le temps,
vive le temps d’hiver
boules de neige et jour de l’an
et bonne année grand-mère.

Sur le long chemin
tout blanc de neige blanche
un vieux monsieur s’avance avec
sa canne dans la main
et tout là-haut le vent qui siffle
dans les branches puis souffle
la romance qu’il chantait petit enfant

Joyeux joyeux Noël aux mille
bougies qu’enchantent vers le ciel
les cloches de la nuit.
Vive le vent, vive le vent,
Vive le vent d’hiver qui rapporte aux vieux enfants un souvenir d’hier.

Et le vieux monsieur descend
vers le village
C’est l’heure où tout est sage
et l’ombre danse au coin du feu
Mais dans chaque maison
il flotte un air de fête partout
la table est prête et l’on entend
la même chanson

Well, everything dried out enough yesterday to get the lights in the lawn to come back to life without popping the GF circuit – so the show went onnline again last night! We see some additional rain predicted for Christmas Eve – and even snow for Christmas day – but you know how these Texas Wheather people can be

I want to say thank you to all of the folks who have left such nice comments on the web site and sent encouraging emails. We’ve heard some many nice stories and just absolutely love hearing about how much everyone likes our efforts! Especially the kiddos! Thanks again!

Well, last night was the first night we had to cancel the show due to rain. Then I had to cancel again tonight. I’m pretty bummed out about it. Not sure where exactly the rain is getting into the system, but I think it’s in the lawn lights. On a channel of their own they draw current fine, but thrown into the mix with the rest of the display cannels and it pops the GFI every time

Hopefully we’ll dry out enough to run the show over the holiday weekend.

This is the first year we’ve done a computer controlled animated display – and BOY AM I HAVING FUN WITH IT!

We are currently only using a single 16 channel Light-O-Rama controller. I spent a goof bit of time trying to layout the lights and tweak the sequences to make the most of the 16 channels and I think I’ve done a pretty good job for a rookie!

We have a total of just over 8,000 mini lights throughout the lawn, the windows, the bushes, the columns and the garland/wreath on our balcony.

I also have 50 blue C9’s along the edge of the flower bed and a strong of 15 white C9’s + 10 of the C9 socket strobes from www.christmaslightshow.com that line the roof across the front of our balcony – this is my favorite string of lights!

We have a couple of wireframes – 2 reindeer with 300 minis and a wireframe “JOY” with another 450 minis.

My favorite piece of lighting overall is our “Light Flurries” machine that I picked up this year – uses a rotating mirrored ball (like a disco ball) with a spotlight pointed at it to created the affect of snow falling on our house – it also creates a nice spotted flood affect when used on an LOR channel throughout a show.

Lastly, we have the most popular addition this year – our virtual santa. Again, thanks to Daryl at www.christmaslightshow.com. We purchased the DVD from him; the DVD chapter just plays in a loop on our Panasic DVD player – now sitting on top of my daughter’s dresser along with a Lumen Lab eVo Home Theatre Projector. This setup projects the Virtual Santa DVD loop onto a white shower curtain that I just hung across the window – acting as a rear projection surface. This has been the big hit with everyone in the neighborhood!

Next year I’m planning to add an additional 16 channels, a mega tree and a few mini trees. I’m also VERY close to getting at least one of my next door neighbors interested in combining our efforts next year for a synchornized multiple home display

• over 10,000 lights
• 10 strobe lights
• virtual snow machine made of a rotating disco ball
• more than one 15 amp circuit
• 2 months in the making
• 1 virtual santa clause (he’s in the upper right hand window which is really hard to see in the videos, but has been the big hit live)
• 14 synchronized christmas hits
• 1 FM transmitter broadcasting on 107.3 FM
• 1 wireless speaker system
• thousands of smiling faces