A Middletown couple puts a lot of time and effort into their annual Christmas light display - and it’s paying off for local charities.
This Christmas, nearly 17,000 lights twinkle and dance in sync to the music at Bill and Sharon Hart’s house.
They started the Christmas light display in 2007 right after Sharon was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I think by doing the lights, it kept my mind off things a little bit,” Bill said.. “Didn’t know what life was going to look like a month from after she was diagnosed, or three years or even today. I just kept programming and doing stuff and the first year I was like, you know what, we’re going to name it ‘Lights for a Cure’ and we started taking donations right away for the American Cancer Society.”
Today, Sharon is cancer-free and the couple says
they’ve raised about $10,000 dollars to the American Cancer Society and Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition. But putting this together every year isn’t easy.
“Putting it together and programming it and getting all the electronics hooked up, I probably cancel Christmas about ten or twelve times throughout the year, “ Bill joked.
He says it takes more than three hours on the computer to program one minute of the show, which involves timing the special lights known as pixels to the music and programming color changes.
“One bulb can change to any color in your imagination,” he said.
It ultimately takes about a month to set up the whole display and a day to tear it all down, but Sharon says it’s worth the effort when she sees all the cars lined up to enjoy the show every night.
“Last night I was sitting at the computer and i heard the music and i heard a little girl singing along to the music, so knowing how many smiles it’s putting on people’s faces and how it’s just kind of spreading the word and it just kind of gives a lot of joy which is definitely what we need these days, “ she said.
The display runs nightly until New Year’s. You can find more information on the Lights for a Cure Facebook page.
