NORWICH – In the spirit of Christmas, two local houses have been decorated with elaborate light displays, hoping to attract visitors who’ll make goodwill donations.
As it has been for the last seven years, the Warner Road, Norwich, home of Richard Lindner and Dr. Karen Banks is surrounded by tens of thousands of Christmas lights.
The lights are programmed to music and drivers can tune their radios to 95.9 FM to hear a broadcast coming from the home’s basement that runs repeatedly from about 5 to 9:30 p.m. every night.
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 Catholic Charity’s Roots and Wings program.
Lindner says his two children, 8-year-old daughter Tyler and 5-year-old son William, are always excited to help their father.
Last year the family collected about 1,800 pounds of food. This year however has been a difficult one and the collection is about half its usually rate. Lindner said three years ago, before the recession, the family collected a record 4,800 pounds of food.
The home can be found at 121 Warner Road, off of County Rt. 33 in the Town of Norwich.
This year’s display took the family about 160 hours to arrange. It will run until Jan. 8.
In the Town of Sherburne, Rick Crowell and his family have decorated their home with tens of thousands of lights, including an eight foot tall cross and a seven and a half foot tall Star of David. The display is also broadcasting a musical light show to drivers who’ll hopefully bring with them a charitable donation to the home at 373 New Turnpike Road in Sherburne.
Crowell is also collecting toys, cash, food and clothing donations for Roots and Wings.
This is the second year in a row Crowell has set up the show and collected donations, with his wife Loretta and four year old son, Preston.
He has a web site at lights4tikes.com.
The show can be heard outside of the Crowell home at FM channel 107.7, beginning between 5 and 5:30 p.m.
“We have over 300 hours of programming into this year’s show and want people to know that this is not your Walmart or Lowes display. This is far more than ‘a Christmas in a box’ that they sell. We can chose our music and program and control every aspect of the show through our software. Again it is all for the Roots and Wings food bank,” said Crowell.
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.