Posted on 12/21/2012 4:41:33 AM PST by BenLurkin
FOUNTAIN VALLEY (CBSLA.com) — A Christmas display with almost 65,600 LED lights at a Fountain Valley home has been attracting hundreds of spectators every night, but not all of them are thrilled by the spectacular light show.
Neighbor Joe Flanagan and several other residents said the house is too bright, too loud and brings too much traffic to their quiet neck of the woods.
“It’s more appropriate for the Las Vegas Strip,” said Flanagan. “It’s not that we’re opposed to Christmas, it’s just too much.”
Jan Stewart, the owner of the home, defends the “Griswold-esque” display as a tribute to her late husband, Larry.
“We said, ‘We gotta do that someday, we gotta do that.’ Last year was the year, and then he didn’t make it. He died May 15 of mesothelioma cancer,” she said.
Last year’s display went viral on YouTube.
Less than a week before Christmas, crowds continue to swarm the attraction from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” a young girl told CBS2/KCAL9’s Rob Schmitt.
Kim Gallaway and a group of friends rented a party bus for their families and travelled 30 miles to see the home.
“It’s worth the trip,” she said.
While some people have complained about Stewart’s residence to the City Council, she’s only received a noise violation ticket.
“It’s Christmas. We don’t do this all the time,” said Stewart.
And how could she?
Damion Rodriguez, the project’s designer, said it takes a month to put together and 650 hours to produce.
The price tag? Around $50,000.
If I had to put up with that until 11pm for a month, I’d train my dogs to poop on her yard all year.
It consumes a lot of power which could be piped off to Mexico and help useful cartel business.
Personally I think some people are being fixative obsessive far beyond the normal or necessary. Now then again I do realize the newest lights are LED, are much safer, less heat and last much longer with a very small current consumption.
And even that had retailers almost up in smoke when they came out as they relied upon replacement bulbs for business, I have the same LED lights from many years ago, they still work and I don’t buy any more.
California? Bet the neighbors wouldn’t complained if it flashed out “Obama’s god”.
What happened to peace on earth and good will to men. One night of that would be all I could stand.
It looks ugly and must be annoying as hell for the neighbors.
On a happier note, the article nextdoor on the CBS Local page took me to "Cheerleader Roundup - Week 15." Now that's some nice, peaceful Christmas cheer. Ho, ho, ho!
I swear I thought the porch roof was flashing “OBAMA, OBAMA”. But I could be wrong.
Personally I think some people are being fixative obsessive far beyond the normal or necessary.
Given Attention Whoredom includes the satanist goth who shot those children in Conn., or a man who recently threw feces at a woman on the subway, or the abuse of Honey Boo Boo via a reality show, this Christmas light attention scream seems harmless.
Here’s another Christmas house. Actually quite good. I don’t think I’d like it next door to me though.
http://www.flixxy.com/best-christmas-lights-display.htm?utm_expid=1298512-10#.UNR6jByRG2k
Using LED lights, it’s actually pretty energy efficient.
At my biggest year, I had 36,000 lights in my yard. They weren’t LED lights. My electric bill matched my summer bill, so while it was expensive, it wasn’t outrageously expensive.
I haven’t converted to LED lights because they are just too expensive, and they don’t tend to survive long in the after-christmas sales. I did replace all my “SB” lights (which use .34 amps per 100 lights) with “ES” lights (which use .2 amps per 100 lights). I tended to pay between 50 cents and 1 dollar per 100 lights, so 36,000 lights cost me somewhere around 360 bucks.
They lost me completely when I noticed that one section of the lights was spelling out the words to the song they were playing "Oppa Gangnam Style". Sorry, that's not Christmas.
For the record, I have what I called "tastefully excessive" lights. They don't blink, I don't have gaudy mechanical stuff or blow-up things.
I have a deer family, a penguin family, a polar bear, a bunch of Christmas trees, and some lights on my house with wreaths. I've got 23,000 lights this year.
Some day I do plan to create a single "tree-like" feature that will have lights that change with music, and have it run on a schedule for a couple hours a night. But it won't be the entire house worth of lights, and it will be tasteful.
The part I figured out it was flashing “Oppa Gangnam Style”, because that was the song that was playing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.