SEBASTIAN — More than 20,000 lights twinkle and dance on the two-story home of Mitch King and Susan Reining at the corner of Miller Drive and Pelican Island Place for a few hours each evening once the sun sets. It’s their labor of love and a tradition that puts people in the holiday spirit.
“It’s just phenomenal,” said Sebastian resident Joan Kriss, who brought her husband, Hank, and friends from Maryland, Bob and Pam Skarda, to see the lights move in time with the holiday music playing on their car radio.
“To see it in person is really something else,” Bob said, explaining he’s seen such decorated and choreographed homes on TV and the Internet.
The Krisses said they have made visiting the King-Reining house an annual tradition for the last four years, helping them to get into the holiday spirit after Thanksgiving.
Eight-year-old Samantha Byrnes and her brother, Matthew, 12, sat on the hood of their dad’s car watching the light show. They’ve come to see the house for three years.
“I wonder how they sleep,” Samantha said as the lights lit up the windows on the second floor.
She said her favorite part of the show is when the reindeer on the roof light up – which isn’t very often, she added.
The reindeer, according to King, are the most difficult part of the whole setup of all the lights. The metal roof poses a challenge for placing the reindeer along the top roof line.
“I think we’re about at our limit,” he said of the number of lights and strain on the power the house can handle.
He got the idea for setting the decorations to music six years ago in response to, in part, a YouTube video he watched of another choreographed home. He and Reining kept it going because of the economy.
“There was a lot of depression,” Reining said, given the state of the stock market.
She and King wanted to do something to lift people’s spirits and bring holiday cheer.
Reining and King both said keeping the light show functioning is a labor of love – one that costs a considerable amount of time and can wreck the body, but it’s worth it.
“When you see the children’s faces, the backache doesn’t hurt so much anymore,” Reining said.
Over six years, King has gained experience and found better ways of programming the lights.
The first time was “very archaic,” he said, explaining that he wrote his own program for the lights. In the years since, he’s purchased a program that handles 125 channels of lights and can schedule them in one-tenth of a second intervals.
Instead of blasting the seven holiday songs through outdoor speakers, King figured out how to broadcast the songs on a loop using a small transmitter. Visitors to the house are encouraged to tune their radios to 93.1 FM to listen to the music.
This year’s musical selections include Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas, Holly Jolly Christmas by Burl Ives, Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Carol of the Bells by David Foster, Russian Dance from The Nutcracker, Wizards of Winter by Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and We Need a Little Christmas.
One of the questions the pair is asked has to do with their electric bill.
“We’re FPL’s favorite customer for the month,” King said, adding that the lights double their electric bill for December, taking it from about $100 to $200.
The light show only runs a few hours each night, which is why the electric bill doesn’t soar further, he said.
But, with the added lines of lights and the bigger drain on the power, King had to figure out a way to keep the fuse box from blowing.
“It’s like a disco inside the house!” he said.
They try to keep the lights off inside the house during show time – and, if that’s not possible, they block the inside of the windows with cardboard.
“You live and learn,” Reining said.
King and Reining said their neighbors have been supportive of the holiday light show and are understanding about the traffic that it has been known to draw.
The couple asks visitors to not pull onto the neighbors’ lawns or otherwise damage their property. Drivers are also asked to turn off their headlights once parked.
The show runs from 6 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday through New Year’s Eve. The show is extended to midnight on Christmas Eve.
When asked if the couple has any plans to take a year off, they shook their heads.
“We’re afraid to sell the house!” quipped Reining, noting that it would be a lot of pressure on the new owners to keep the tradition alive.
“We’ll keep doing it for as long as we can,” King said.
