FAQs

How many lights are in the grass?  The lights in the grass go by several different names: ‘Peace stakes’, ‘Pixel Stakes’, or ‘Firesticks’. ‘Peace stakes’ derived from David Peace who made them popular in a TV episode of “The Great Christmas Light Fight”. In our implementation each stake has 5 RGB lights; main yard has 6 rows of 20 stakes (600 RGB lights) and the Blasko field has 6 rows of 10 stakes (300 RGB lights) for a total of 900 RGB lights.

How many visitors do you get?  With visitors coming and going throughout the show, along with weekend nights being busier, it is hard to get an accurate count. One indication of the volume of visitors is based on the website statistics in just the month of December 2025 – 449 visits to ‘Showtimes and Directions’ and Google Business indicated 200 people asked for directions.

Most Number of cars?  We don’t know on a per night basis but several nights the INDOT parking lot was full and the field next to it had over a dozen cars parked.

Will you do a Halloween show?  We do some props with a Halloween theme around 31 October, but do not intend to do any lights to music for Halloween. Besides living in a rural area (our average number of trick or treaters is zero) we are still cutting the grass in October. Lots of the props, communication cables and electrical cords are run through the yard for the Christmas show and it is not practical for a full-blown Halloween sequence where we have to pick them up every time we mow. Mr. Johnson puts the RGB wreaths up on the house with Halloween ‘skins’ and lights them up as pumpkins, along with the house outline lights in Halloween colors around 31 October.

What are some typical responses to asking people what they most like about the show?  Most kid’s responses are: “the Frozen songs”. Typical adult response is: “they like the fact they don’t have to put up the Christmas lights”.

Don’t you wrongly credit who performs “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”?  “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was performed by Thurl Ravenscroft in the 1966 movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!”, our sequence is from the Burl Ives “Forever Burle Ives Vol. 2” album and is credited accordingly.

Why do you do this?  Because Mrs. Johnson loves seeing Christmas lights and loves the Christmas season.

Is this a walk through or drive through show? Our show is a residential home that puts this show on every year. You park in the INDOT parking lot across the street, tune your car radio to 107.1FM and you can stay as long as you’d like and watch the show. Please stay in your vehicle and do not enter our yard.

Who is the Narrator? Our middle son, Jarod does the narration with occasional support from our Granddaughter Jaclyn and Jarod’s wife Candice.

How many lights are in the display? Over 11,000 ‘lights’. The light show is really defined by props. Each prop has between 1 light (like a flood light) to more than 800 lights (the megatree). Props also range from controlling a string of ‘traditional’ lights (tree flood lights – LED bulbs in traditional light sockets), to ‘new’ LED lights (wreaths on building), and the ‘latest’ RGB lights (megatree, talking faces, and roof outlines). Every prop with RGB lights are controlled at each light – program light #72 in the string to turn on to a specific color and brightness.

How long does it take to set them up? Planning is year round. Serious prototyping of the next light show starts 5 July, after the 4th of July fireworks are cleaned up.  Christmas music is heard in our house starting in August. Bringing it all together is a solid week of 10+ hour days.

How many songs are in the show? Since 2022 we have kept the song list at 40. Each year we add a few new sequences along with updating all of sequences to the new props and configuration, but we retire the same number of sequences we add. Click her for list of songs.

How much electricity? The entire system, when running, is about 1,500watts on average. Which equates to roughly a $45 increase in my electric bill for November and December.

What runs the show? Light-O-Rama software and hardware is at the heart of the show! A single PC, running Light-O-Rama software, dedicated serial communication lines to Light-O-Rama hardware controllers connected to each light prop.

How many donations have you raised for WonderLab? Since collecting donations starting in 2018 we have raised more than $4,500 for WonderLab. Click here to donate.

What do your neighbors think?  We are in rural Indiana and have one neighbor, who is our biggest fan that frequently brings guests to watch the lights and helps set up!

Can INDOT turn off their numerous flood lights during the show? Apparently not.