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With the display at the home of Everett and Rosario Brown are Everett Brown (top left) and his son Duane (top row, second from left) with Everett's grandchildren Ryan (top right), and Matthew and Ethan (front, from left).
Everett Brown bent rebar to hold lights in the "wave" pattern in his Stafford County holiday display.
The Browns used PVC pipe to hold colored string lights as guitar and banjo strings. |
WHEN Duane and Linda
But a small yard, nearby lights and a mix of traffic made that spot less than perfect.
Last year, they came up with an idea that Duane's parents--Everett and Rosario Brown, also of Stafford--quickly agreed to.
"We liked their suggestion of moving it here," said Everett, a retired financial manager with the Federal Aviation Administration. "I became the work force."
So last year and this year, the two sets of Browns set up what they call "The Brown Family Xmas Light Show" at the parents' home just a spin off Poplar Road in Wateredge Estates.
After more nominations for a winner than I've received in some time, it's this year's pick for my Grand Holiday Displays feature.
"We had one neighbor who brought his grandson over to see it," said Rosario Brown, who is retired from the Stafford County schools office. "He asked if he could get out of the car and dance."
The Browns' high-tech computerized mix of lights and music is a real treat. You can set your car radio to 105.7 FM and listen to a repeating program of eight different Christmas songs and messages.
Thanks to hundreds of hours of programming by Duane Brown, the music in each song is synchronized with signals to 22,000 lights in the yard. They form a myriad of shapes: trees, bushes, arches, features on the house and a large guitar and banjo in the yard, all lighting and pulsing to match the music.
"It's pretty labor intensive to do the programming," said Brown, a computer network engineer for the Stafford school system. "Each minute of music takes about five hours to program."
The countless strings of lights in the yards, supported by PVC pipe, rebar and other materials the elder Brown shaped, are connected through 192 different computerized "channels" that can be on, off or gradually lightened or darkened by 12 different controller boxes.
Visitors don't need to know all that to enjoy the lights flashing to songs that range from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo" to a recording of "Blue Christmas" by none other than Porky Pig.
As the porker's voice rises and falls, the various pieces in the yard and on the house light up and then fade out.
From lots of blue to all red and green and then the white, the collection of lights that are mostly LEDs blink on and off to the music.
"The fact that they're LEDs, and that the lights are continually being turned on and off, and not on all the time, means our electric bill is probably just up $75 or so for the month," said the elder Brown.
Another cost he kept down was the construction of items that light up.
"I just use what I can to hold the lights in the shapes we want," he said. "Last year, we had actual little artificial Christmas trees as one feature, but they blocked some of the light. I made frames to hang lights for new ones."
Snow and a hot summer took a toll on some of the lights he left on the roof of the house. "Those strings were just disintegrating," he said. "I had to replace all of them."
Everett Brown is from West Virginia. His wife is from Texas. They met in California when he was in the Army.
The couple used to decorate more modestly with more traditional lights and figures. "But we enjoy watching cars stop and see the light show," said Rosario.
As word of the Browns' show has spread, the number of people who come to see it has increased. Rosario Brown notes that their two grown daughters and grandchildren love to watch it, too.
Yes, it may take from the middle of October until Thanksgiving to set up the display, which fits mostly in storage under the house.
But when people pull in to watch the show, and when they drop off food in the collection barrel for the area food bank, it makes it all worth it.
Especially when Porky sings "Blue Christmas"
"That's my favorite," said Rosario. "It makes me laugh."
Rob Hedelt: 540/374-5415
Email: rhedelt@freelancestar.com
