Xmas Light Shows

I’m normally not a fan of overdone Christmas, from the incessant carol tracks in retail stores, the shopping craze, and, namely, Christmas seemingly starting earlier each year.  I saw decorations in stores around Halloween-time this year, making xmas nearly a three month holiday.  But one thing I like over-the-top would be the lights and light shows.  So, in the festive spirit, here are my top picks for this year.  (I’ve tried to make them all 2011.  A few are 2010, but I figured that’s close enough.)  I don’t really have specific judging criteria, but I guess I like a certain uniqueness, song choice, and “musicality” of lights.

First place:

Saks building

• Nashville Yogi Bear Recreation area

But since one is a professional building and the other a whole park, here’s first place to homes:

Dueling Banjos

Second place:

Curse of the Ice Queen

Runners up:

Angry Birds

Queen of the Night aria

• Cadger Christmas

• Star Wars

Honorable mention:

Texas Trees
Music Box Dancer (2009)
Carol of the Bells, Hunt

And I decided to create a third “award”.  Maybe titled Less is More Award?  Because you don’t have to have a billion lights or many different moving parts to put on a good show.  In any case, I thought these were particularly creative.  So here are two Grinchy favorites:

• Grinch in pictograms
• Grinch light show

This isn’t Christmasy and it isn’t exactly a light show, but I think it should be thrown in here for good measure:

Dubstep Ruben’s Tube

Some runners up for the Ruben Tube:
For the cleanest sound waves, fluteboxing. (This video is in German.  It’s pretty self-explanatory, that the flautist plays into a microphone and the soundwaves go into the tube, and it’s an example of what happens when he plays slow, or low and high notes.  The beatbox starts about a minute, 50 seconds.)
for best show:
Iron Butterfly
Journey, Für Elise, and Phantom

And last, but not least, while on the subject of odd instruments (another blog, another time), here’s “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” on one of my favorite instruments, the contrabass saxophone.

Related articles

• Xmas Projection Mapping Show [Video] (geeksaresexy.net)
• WATCH: Light Show Stuns Crowd In Ukraine (huffingtonpost.com)
• Xmas Buskers & Tube Music – 12 Days of Tube-Mas – Signs of Xmas on the Tube (london-underground.blogspot.com)
• Weekend Music Thread – Merry Xmas 2011! (planetpov.com)
• mock review of Christmas Carol

A post script to the light show creators, please, no more “Wizards in Winter”.