GLENS FALLS — Paul Smith stood in his front yard, bathed in thousands of lights from his annual Christmas display, and flashed a smile as bright as any holiday bulb.
“I’ve got some tremendous plans for next year,” said Smith, whose yard and house at 22 Clayton Ave. has been a holiday destination and local landmark for a quarter-century. “You just wait.”
Despite Thursday’s chilly weather, dozens of people, many of them children, trooped through the well-worn paths in his yard, gaping at the lights, small buildings and other ornaments large and small. On one side of the house is a manger, sitting across from a display window that hosts a huge, light-up ceramic village. On the roof is an angel with wings and around the yard are all types of holiday decorations.
Unlike other homes that invite a slow ride past, Smith’s begs a visit.
“There are more than 20 buttons to push, and every one of them does something special,” said Smith, who is especially proud of a newly constructed helicopter that lifts Santa above the house when the right button gets pushed. “If you drive by, you’ll miss too much.”
He’s constantly looking for ways to improve — he and his 12-year-old daughter Chelsea went to a “Christmas in July” event in Tennessee this summer to learn about the latest technology.
Another Santa, along with the chimney he is deposited into with the push of another button, is the oldest piece in the display, dating back to the first year.
“I am guessing it was 26 years ago,” Smith said.
Those who have been visiting Smith’s display over the years will notice something different this time around. A small building with an inside display, which used to be along one side of the yard, has been moved to the front.
While the Santa and chimney — which were donated to Smith by Storytown USA founder Charles R. Wood — are the oldest pieces in the show. The newest are 12 clear tubes filled with LEDs called “Cosmic Color Ribbons,” which are made by Light-O-Rama, an international company based in South Glens Falls.
Each flexible weatherproof strip has 150 super bright color LEDs spaced evenly along its length and comes with a controller that allows it to be programmed. Smith has them set to flash various designs along with music after visitors press one of three buttons on a control panel. The speakers are positioned so the music that plays in time with the lights can only be heard in front of them, and the music playing by the driveway and beyond can only be heard there.
The strips are set up to look like a Christmas tree, with a big star at the top.
“I had to put it over there. It’s 23 feet tall. It would have been three feet above the roof,” he said.
Getting popular
Smith is far from the only homeowner to use Light-O-Rama’s cosmic ribbons. Like many other who spend their holidays showing off their homes, Smith is watching ABC’s “The Great American Light Fight,” a series that matches complex, decorated homes against one another.
Dan Baldwin, who with his wife, Mary, runs Light-O-Rama, has also been watching.
“I would say two-third of the people competing are our customers,” he said. “The guy who won the other night was definitely one of ours.”
That particular home decorator was Brian Larsen, who owns a landscaping company and has more than 1 million lights on his home in Elburn, Ill.
“That one was really amazing,” Smith said. “I love to watch that stuff.”
He also loves to make things, putting to use his experience as an installer with Mahoney Alarms Inc. of Glens Falls, where he worked until being seriously injured in a car crash about 10 years ago. He combines his own knowledge of electricity with an ability to find others who can help him find what he needs and put it together.
“It’s amazing how much people help with this,” Smith’s wife, Pam, said. “We get a lot of donations, and people just really love to see it grow.”
Smith begins his projects in September, working by himself most of the time. His accident left him with issues with his short-term memory, so when he’s building something new, like the helicopter or the color-ribbon display, he has to carefully detail his trial and error.
Eventually, as he gets closer, he has friends help, and by Thanksgiving night, he’s almost always ready to go. This year, because of all the changes, he was one day late, but his display looks better than ever.
Industry leader
Just as the Smiths’ display has changed and expanded, the Baldwins’ company has gotten much larger in the 15 years since they moved from New Jersey and to the forefront of lighting displays.
So much has happened in that time that even Baldwin himself sounds incredulous at times.
“We’re only seeing the beginning of what’s going to start happening with automated, animated lights,” Dan Baldwin said. “It used to be you had lights that were one color, and you might have three strands of different colors and light them at different times.
“Now you have the RGB (red, green, blue) lights, which means every light can be any color you want it to be at any one time,” he said. “Now every light has a mind of its own.”
Even though he knows what the lights can do and is the one who sells them, Baldwin remains amazed at what people do with them.
“It’s mind-boggling the scale some people go with this stuff,” he said. “You measure lights in channels, the zones of lights you have, and there are some people who have 20,000 or 30,000 channels. That’s mind-blowing.”
Smith will never have anything on that scale. He’s limited by his space.
But don’t forget, he’s got some wild ideas for next year.
“OK, look at the cosmic ribbons now,” he said. “They’re in the shape of a Christmas tree.
“Now, even them out and make them horizontal,” he said, speaking a little faster and getting excited. “Imagine you could have the music playing and the lights flashing so you could see the words to the Christmas carol flashing on the ribbon. You could have kids standing here, reading the words and singing along.
“Wouldn’t that be something?”
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