Christmas Lights Videos
If you watch one christmas movie, I suggest you watch this 4 minute "Why I Do It?" video: And if you enjoy the video's (plus turning the thousands of Christmas lights on & off) please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research - my holidays lights have raised over $40,000 to help fund their research.

2009 Christmas Lights Videos

Most of these these Christmas Videos are mpeg format and generated from sequence of images from the webcams, so there is no audio. Run times are less than a minute.

2008 Christmas Lights Videos

Unless said otherwise, all of these Christmas Videos are mpeg format and generated from sequence of images from the webcams, so no audio. Run times are less than a minute.

2007 Christmas Lights Videos

2006 Christmas Lights Videos

2005 Christmas Lights Videos

Lotsa footage from the three ChristmasCams below - they were even used as a Santa Tracker to get some footage of the Big Red Guy! While they webcams have PTZ (Pan, Tilt, Zoom) control, I have not allowed Internet surfers (this year!) to have access to that. But you will sometimes see the picture "jump" as I move them around. For reference, the three ChristmasCams are:
    1. Across the street looking to the South at most of the house
    2. Looks to the North down onto the front lawn
    3. Is in Santa's Workshop ... my office! ;-)

There was quite a few entertaining video's in 2004 (see below - my favorite was the me up in the ABC News Heli) and here's a selection from Christmas/2005:


Detailed explanation from Alek of how it is done for real in 2005 - Windows WMV format Alek's "wardrobe" provided by MajorGeeks.Com ;-)

And if you are the last person on the Internet not to see it, check out this Computer animated display set to music (3 minutes - 5 MBytes) by Carson Williams from Mason Ohio. I don't have the budget to do this level of light control - WOW - great job Carson! Also, I'm pretty sure this video is NOT his kids inside his house ... but it is pretty funny. Finally, see the Miller Beer commercial of Carson's lights (30 seconds - 7 MBytes) ... note the snow on the ground, but none on the streets - my guess is Miller added fake snow for the shot (?) The folks over at LindsayLights.Com also have a full-on computer control and did their lights set to the same music. Great info and story about two brothers who also raised a buncha money for charity - another awesome job!

2004 Christmas Lights Videos

Thanx to tomas316's TIVO, I have the following excerpted video's in quick-time format which are provided under fair use. From what I can gather, there was quite a bit more TV coverage, especially when the hoax broke, including CNN Headline News, Good Morning America, Today Show, etc. Email Santa if you have any coverage to contribute. And here is a 47 second (2.2 MBytes) movie of the Christmas Lights in action with reporting from yours truly! ;-)

2004 Christmas Lights Video after the Wall Street Journal Article

Channel 7 6:00 News correction - love the "oh Alek" at the end ... and here is my two cents on that "Alek did not respond" comment

Channel 9 correction - I love the "big breath" as he starts the story, but very fair correction - nice job guys!

Channel 7 correction from the morning news - now these guys did a MUCH nicer job that the evening guys the night before - class act guys, heck you even yucked it up on the air - I bet you were one of the 84% who voted me funny on your on-line poll! Plus you correctly said that I "revealed the hoax because it got outa hand" ... how 'bout giving your online guys a holler who (even after correcting my name in the story 2 hours after you aired), are still showing that the Wall Street Journal "uncovered the ruse" which is completely incorrect.

Tech TV correction - Chi-Lan has some fun with it (good for her ... and thanx for getting the name right) as Kevin Pereira grumbles in the background.

Some other misc. movies/videos

While not related to Christmas lights per se, I thought these deserved mentioning.


A special thanx to folks who have helped host the video's

I don't like to put movies - along with some free christmas music - on my web site, because they tend to be large and if a lotta people look at 'em, then it slows down the web server. In 2004, a christmas lights enthusiast named Jason helped host the christmas videos on his web site when things were crazy ... thanx Jason. And Jim & Tim over at MajorGeeks.Com have a mirror mirror of all of this stuff if the above links are slow - thanx guys!

For 2005, Dominic at Vidahost has graciousely volunteered to help out. Dominic is a director of Thermal Degree, a UK-based web design and hosting company setup by two friends in early 2004. Vidahost, launched just over one year ago, is their hosting branch which offers shared and reseller hosting. Dominic also handled some mirroring of www.asiantsunamivideos.com, a collection of video footage from the tsunami of December 2004 which attracted thousands of visitors and nearly 1Gbit/sec of traffic. And he is also a member of the World Wind community at www.worldwindcentral.com, and hosts a collection of Christmas Videos on his site as well.

In 2006, I ante'ed up the big bucks so I'd have a dedicated server to handle this stuff! ;-)