We want to thank you for your interest and support in our Christmas light show at the home of John and Mary Alice Hoover. We are the parents of two amazing adult children Kimberly & Chad. We are also grandparents, which is the most fun ever. When our kids were toddlers, we would put them in our car and take them around town to all of our favorite locations known for having the best display of lights. We enjoyed the Christmas lights the most when the kids would smile and show their excitement.
As Christians, we understand the importance of the birth of Jesus, but as part of this celebration, we also enjoy sharing something of ourselves with our community. We always had a decorated tree and a few strings of lights on the bushes in front of our home. This was the extent of our decorating for many years.
When Kimberly graduated from high school, she moved to a college dorm and started her life as a young adult. About the same time Chad, preparing to enter high school, was sharing his plans for creating a technical light display using a computer to turn our Christmas lights on and off to the rhythm of music. As parents from a simpler time, we were fine with our traditional lights on a few bushes. Chad, now thirteen, had bigger plans.
After several years of his persistence, we finally were also thinking this could be fun to share with our community and have families enjoy our lights as we had enjoyed others. So, in 2005 we bought our first two controllers and all the components required to computerize our lightshow based on Chad’s planning and research. He taught himself to program the lights to music and the making of the connections required for the computer to run the show. Both our children are incredibly talented, so we were not surprised when it worked with very little debug.
We are blessed being able to share this with our community but also that our community has been so generous. Every year, our guests donate to the local charity, “GraceWorks Ministries,” through our display. With Chad married and no longer living with us, we have had to learn the programming and debugging of our show on “Old Charlotte” in order to continue our tradition.
Chad and his wife, Kelsi, have created a second show, “Lights on Sparrow Street,” in Spring Hill. They have taken it to a new level of technology using RGB lighting to create a magnificent light show. Chad has continued to be the front man for both shows using his talents such as to build this website, the working with “GraceWorks Ministries”, and our public relations through newspapers and other social media. Our daughter Kimberly is married to a fine young man, Will Crankshaw. Maybe they will one day create a third light show. We will see. Please come see both our shows during the next Christmas season. Hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas.