Colden Hill Lights Up The Holiday Season
While driving through the neighborhood this time of the year, one house that cannot be overlooked in 125 Colden Hill Road in Newburg.
For the past 11 years, Joe Caparaso has been hosting a 26-minute light show in his front yard throughout the holiday season for his neighbors and the local community to enjoy.
After learning that the technology to animate Christmas lights had become available to the public back in 2006, Caparaso did some technical research and decided to tackle the project. Caparaso admitted the process seemed pretty straight forward at first, but the technology and setup was rather complex.
“I never dreamed how intense the actual programming of the animation would be,” Caparaso said. “Sequencing the lights to the music takes anywhere from four to six hours per minute of animation. Luckily that is a one-time endeavor, and you can use it year to year unless you add new songs or props onto the display.”
The first Christmas on Colden Hill Road was very simple consisting of 16 channels of animations with the lights blinking in time to five different songs. Today, the display has over 800 channels plus additional enhancements such as “pixels,” intelligent lights which can be coded individually allowing for actual animations like those displayed on the 20-foot pixel tree.
Running the annual light show is not as expensive as one may think. Caparaso says that he buys the majority of the lights and props for the show after the holidays when such items are on deep discount, and he rarely buys anything at full price.
“Since switching over to LED lights a few years ago, our power bill sees only the very slightest of an increase during December,” Caparaso said. “Our pool in the summer uses a lot more power than the display ever has.”
Christmas on Colden Hill Road is a one-man show in regards to the programming of the music which begins in June if new songs are added. However, Caparaso recruits the help of family and friends each year to setup in November and take down in January. The show is open to the public beginning the first Friday after Thanksgiving and runs until New Year’s Day from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. every night.
This year Caparaso is expecting around 8,000 vehicles to stop by the display with guests coming from all over. Some notable guests in the past have included a famous clothing designer and his family, a professional baseball player and of course Santa Claus.
In addition to the light show, Christmas on Colden Hill Road also collects donations for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) in honor of a young Caparaso family member who has Type-1 diabetes.
Going forward, Caparaso hopes to improve Christmas on Colden Hill Road and continue to bring the holiday spirit to the local community.
“I want to go bigger and better each year!” Caparaso said. “This was a year in which I unfortunately had limited time, so hopefully we will be able to devote some more time to the display in the future and watch it soar.”
