The Advent Calendar: Day 9

The Top 10 Musical Christmas Lights On The Planet

Submitted to The Yorker's Advent Calendar by the Arts Section.

Every year we see Christmas lights go up across the world. Some of them are tasteful, and some of them aren’t. Many people get annoyed and some are entertained. And then, on occasion, you run into a situation that is simply epic on any scale. Most of the time, it’s because they have put their lights to music. Here are ten such situations – with no songs repeated.

(I would like to note, before listing them, that I do not advise burning so much energy for a minor amusement, as it is bad for the environment and definitely not sustainable on a student budget. Oh and even if you don’t care about the planet or your money, neighbours on a terraced street may not be too happy).

10. Spirit of the Season - Alan Silvestri

I thought it would make a good introduction, as it’s almost everything typical about good musical Christmas lights in a big package. I like the spotlights, but as sweet as it is, it just feels fifty years out of date… Thanks for this entry go to google’s “song identification system” for telling me what the song was.

9. Jingle Bells - Crazy Frog

There are three types of people who put up Christmas lights: those who think they look pretty, those who try to entertain and those who are deliberately annoying everyone that travels within a mile of their house. This entry is for those in the third bracket, who thought that gigantic lights weren’t enough, and that Crazy Frog was needed. For those who find it *too* annoying, there’s a Star Trekkin’ display here.

8. Sandstorm - Darude

Ok, I’m not a big fan of techno, but the synchronisation is excellent and works really well with the bass, or something. I’m just guessing it probably goes around #8, so stick a comment on the bottom if you agree/disagree.

7. Little Drummer Boy - Bob Seger

Remember when you were a child, and you noticed that a house with two big upstairs windows looked a bit like a face? Well somebody decided that when they grew up, they’d make the house sing at you with the voice of Bob Seger. It’s well done, though.

6. Jingle Bells - Ochre

I mentioned that I don’t really understand techno…. I still don’t. This one is pretty cool, though? Ummmm………

5. Nutrocker - Trans-Siberian Orchestra

One of the best synchronisations out there, in good clarity, and with 75,000 lights in a relatively delicate layout. The only major drawback is that the song isn’t really very Christmassy and that, compared to the final four, it doesn’t make much of an impact and is likely to be forgotten the moment that you leave this page.

4. Christmas Shoes - Newsong

A lovely song with some good thought. It gets massive bonus points for its originality, though they appear to have stolen Dorothy’s shoes from the Wizard of Oz.

3. Carol of the Bells - Celtic Woman

I know what you were thinking: the other songs didn’t have enough lights, right? Well here’s your answer; 210,000 lights put to a lovely and original version of a Christmas song, with perfect synchronisation. They’re also the only one that I found that actually tells people to listen to the secret FM channel, so that people can tell that they’re synchronised.

2. Wizards of Winter - Trans-Siberian Orchestra

The eponymous classic amongst Christmas lights (seriously, about half of them are to this song), the creator of this, my deemed ‘best’ Wizards of Winter lights, decided to just start with the word ‘epic’ and see where it led them. The end result is majestic, but perhaps a little too much.

1. Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24) - Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Everything works perfectly from start to finish, with a delicate build up (including a lovely ‘duet’) and the traditional ‘flash blindly’ moment at the climax that lasts just long enough to avoid causing seizures. The perfect winner and perfect ending to my list of greatest Christmas Lights.

If you want to watch them all, I have been a gentleman and prepared a playlist that will autoplay them all in order. Enjoy!

For yesterday’s Advent article, click here.

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