NORWICH – As Christmas creeps closer, the number of lights decorating area homes continues to grow, as does a need for giving to the less fortunate. Some local residents are hoping to attract donations with their decorative displays.
For the last six years, the Warner Road, Norwich home of Richard Lindner and Dr. Karen Banks has been surrounded with tens of thousands of Christmas lights during the holiday season.
With over 30,000 LED lights programmed to music, drivers can tune their radios to 94.9 FM to hear a transmission coming from the couple’s basement that broadcasts in intervals of over 10 minutes, creating a moving lights display to holiday melodies. The show runs repeatedly from about 5 to 9:30 p.m. every day.
The lights draw spectators and traffic, but also support for a good cause. The Lindner family puts out a large basket at the end of their driveway and collects food for the Emmanuel Episcopal Church’s pantry.
This marks the fourth year Lindner family has held the drive during their Christmas light extravaganza. Non-perishable canned goods can be deposited in a large wooden box, decorated as a present in front of the home. Last year, the Lindners collected about 3,000 pounds of food for the Emmanuel Episcopal food pantry.
Lindner says he gets draws inspiration to decorate from his two children, 7-year-old daughter Tyler and 4-year-old son William.
“To be honest, there probably wouldn’t have been a show this year, but my daughter climbed up into the attic, with nothing but a Halloween flashlight, and pulled out all the decorations,” said Richard.
Richard said he’s been busy working on the his wife’s new doctor’s office, at 45-47 Hale St., renovating the building’s interior for about 8 to 12 hours a day.
“It’s been a lot of work this year. Tyler pulled out all the stuff. She was so excited and is old enough to look forward to it every year now. Guess I’ll being doing it until she’s at least 18 now,” joked Richard, who said his own childhood experiences first inspired the decorations.
“It’s all about the kids. I loved seeing the lights when I was a kid. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but something we’d always do is drive around to see the lights. I loved it and I’m glad I can give a similar experience to other excited kids, especially my own,” said Richard.
In the Town of Sherburne, another Christmas light enthusiast has also decked out his home with the season’s decorations, broadcasting a musical light show to drivers who’ll hopefully bring with them a charitable donation.
Rick Crowell has so far set up 20,000 of the 51,000 lights scheduled for display around his home at 373 New Turnpike Road in Sherburne.
Crowell is collecting toys, cash, food and clothing donations for Catholic Charities. Most of the items as being collected in a 55-gallon drum. A steel security donation box is also going up.
“What people might not realize is it takes about 8 hours of programming for every 30 seconds of a timed show. You have to tell each light what to do. Altogether, this is about 500 hours in the setup,” explained Crowell.
This is Crowell’s first year attempting to collect donations, but in prior years he’s set up elaborate decorations for his family – his wife Loretta and four year old son, Preston.
He also invites people to visit his web site at lights4tikes.com.
The show can be heard outside of the Crowell home at FM channel 107.7 at dark, beginning between 5 and 5:30 p.m.
Both homeowners say they spend remarkably little on powering the displays, using different approaches. Crowell has his arrangement configured to only light up so many lights at a time, but at a fast speed – meaning he only needs to power a small portion of his display at a time.
Lindner adopted LED lights this year; although more expensive than regular lights, his display uses one tenth of the electricity it had in past years.