Photo by Kevin Anderson

Lawrence resident Zach Stoltenberg puts a little Christmas spirit in his light display along with a little music. Using over 10,000 LED lights, 210 channels through a special software program on his laptop, Stoltenberg transmits an FM signal that viewers can pick up in their car radio when they drive by to see the display.

Zach Stoltenberg moved furniture into his new house on a corner lot with his wife, Alicia, on Nov. 7. The very next day, he started putting Christmas lights up on the house. In fact, he had his holiday light display figured out before the house even was built.

Three weeks later, the Stoltenbergs had a fully animated light display made of 10,000 LED lights, coordinated with 20 minutes of holiday music. The display, which is on from 6 p.m. to midnight every night, is much more than a holiday pastime for Zach.

“It’s a hobby. I do it all year,” the 27-year-old said. “It’s what I do for fun. I don’t ever want to make money off it.”

This year is the first for the display at their new house at 4530 Larissa Drive, but the second year of an animated display. Passersby can tune into 98.7 FM on their radios and listen to the music the lights are timed to. Also new this year is the fundraising Zach has coupled with the display, and he hopes to raise $500 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital through donations.

Zach’s love for the holidays started with his family in Nebraska, and he fondly remembers searching for the perfect Christmas tree on the tree farm with his family and putting up lights with his father.

“Christmas was a big deal,” he said.

While living in a fraternity at Kansas University, where he was getting his architecture degree, holidays were pretty much absent from the halls. So when Zach and Alicia got married and moved to their first home on New Jersey Street in 2007, he was determined to have a holiday, no matter how little money they had to do it.

“I said, ‘I’ve had enough of this. We’re going to have Christmas if it kills us,’” Zach said.

That first year, Alicia gave Zach a budget of $50 for holiday decorations, and he decorated the house with a couple strings of white lights and smaller trees. Soon, though, he was tinkering with decorations, at one point rewiring a string of chaser lights to look like a pinwheel spinning.

A homemade North Pole later, Zach had logged onto PlanetChristmas.com and met Lawrence resident Gary Martin, who also animates the lights on his house.

Last holiday season, Zach made the jump into animated holiday lights. When he and Alicia started looking for a site for a new house, they knew they had to consider the lighting show.

“This house was designed around our family, but a lot of it was around the display too,” he said.

They chose a corner lot with few neighbors and plenty of parking space on the side of the road, and then got to work on this year’s display.

Zach ordered this year’s lights on Jan. 15, then got to work programming the lights to songs. Each 30-second portion takes eight hours to program, so for his 20-minute program, he’s spent the equivalent of 14 days programming.

“You’ve got to be crazy to do this,” he said, laughing.

Despite having thousands of lights on his house and in his yard, Zach said LED lights use only 10 percent of the power of normal Christmas lights, and his electric bill had actually gone down this month.

“The lights aren’t all on at the same time; only a quarter are on at the same time,” he said.

That doesn’t mean he hasn’t invested a lot into the lights, though. He said during the last three years he’s probably spent $4,000 to $5,000 on the decorations, something Alicia tries not to think about. She said she’s happy he’s not spending money on more destructive hobbies, though.

“I know it’s something he really enjoys,” she said. “I really like them; it’s just weird that it’s my house.”

Zach said he hopes to continue decorating for years, perhaps even with the help of his son, Micah, who will turn 2 in March. This year Micah tried to help assemble the lights, although his motor skills weren’t quite advanced enough yet.

For now, he’ll keep expanding and programming his light show.

“At least until I get too old to do it,” he said.

For more info on Zach’s display, visit his website at www.lightuplawrence.net.

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