Ferguson Township man puts on Christmas light show

Colored lights are a Christmas tradition across the country, but some who celebrate the holiday aren’t satisfied with simply adorning their homes with lights.

Lights synced with music have become a popular holiday oddity, if the growing number of YouTube videos showcasing such light-and-sound spectacles is to be believed.

Eric Stoner, of Ferguson Township, wanted to create a light show at his home three years ago, but life kept getting in the way.

“We just got too busy around the holidays,” Stoner said. “Then two years ago my second daughter was born. Then last year my other daughter got an appendicitis.”

But this year, he was able to bring his plans to life, creating a small but memorable display at his home at 107 Harvest Run Road North.

From 5 to 11 p.m. daily, the Stoner residence lights up with multicolored icicles, a tree of lights and a singing Santa Claus face set to about 22 tunes.

Traditional Christmas classics play alongside holiday fare like Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Wizards in Winter,” “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” and “Let it Go,” the song from Disney’s animated hit “Frozen.”

“I had to put the ‘Frozen’ song in for my daughter,” he said.

The music doesn’t play out of Stoner’s home out of respect for his neighbors. Instead, songs can be heard by tuning to 88.5 FM, thanks to a transmitter in his home.

Stoner, who does lighting for an entertainment company, said he’s not a hunter or fisherman, so he wanted to do something as a fun hobby. Plus, he said, his daughters Elizabeth, 6 and Emma, 2, along with all the other kids in the neighborhood, would get a kick out of it.

His wife, Karen, helped him plan the display, he said, which took about four weeks to set up. The lights are computer controlled through a software program, he said. Each string has to be mapped to each song, a process that can take 10 to 12 hours a song.

“I definitely feel like there’s a void in large light displays,” he said. “When I was a kid, we used to have fun driving around and finding the light displays.

“Now you can see them on YouTube, but there’s nothing like seeing the light shows in person.”

This story was originally published December 8, 2014 at 10:26 PM with the headline "Ferguson Township man puts on Christmas light show."