All of the (Christmas) Lights – 英会話・英語　アミック

December of sophomore year of high school, I remember being in class and seeing several students huddling around my teacher’s computer. The video they described to the rest of us didn’t sound that exciting at the time, but it would go to spark a (arguably tacky) trend that adds even more to the spectacle of Christmas.

The video was of the home of Carson Williams, an electrical engineer from Mason, Ohio (about 25 minutes from where I grew up). Williams had rigged the 16,000 Christmas lights on his house to flash and dance in time with Christmas metal band Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Wizards of Winter”, which you could hear if you tuned to a specific radio frequency in your car. The light show became so popular that Williams had to shut it down for the 2005 Christmas season due to the traffic congestion it was creating in his neighborhood. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmgf60CI_ks

The following Christmas season, many others started to post videos of their own elaborate light displays, and Williams was even hired to do the lighting for a beer commercial. The buzz around the idea allowed Williams to start his own holiday lights company, and in the years that followed he was commissioned to do commercial-scale holiday light shows in cities like Denver and Chicago. 

Although the fad seems to be somewhat dying off (at least according to Google Trends), new light show videos still make the rounds every holiday season, often incorporating other pop culture trends. 

Even if these immaculate displays end up fizzling out and going the way of sending a family newsletter or actually singing carols to your neighbors, the decade of the light show will live on for a long time in Christmas lore.