Oxford resident transforms home into a computer-programmed Halloween light show

Brian Gardner has been decorating for Halloween as long as he can remember. In 2020, he decided to kick it up a notch by programming his very own computer-controlled lights.

Located at his home at 4146 Miami Western Drive, Gardner’s show includes music. Visitors can listen by turning to the radio station 98.1, as well as lights that are synchronized to go along with the music.

At the beginning of the month, Gardner transforms his front yard into a cemetery, complete with spiderwebs, skeletons and even a light-up tree.

He and his wife started by only doing a full show for Christmas, and putting out minimal decorations for Halloween. Since they put up their Christmas light show so early, his wife suggested they do a full show for Halloween, too.

Usually, they start the Halloween show at the beginning of the month and have it up throughout all of October; however, this year, the weather set them behind and they weren’t able to get it set up right away. On Thanksgiving Day, Gardner sets up his Christmas show and leaves it up until Jan. 1

“Christmas was always my thing, and Halloween was always my wife’s favorite holiday,” Gardner said. “... I think the Halloween show has kind of grown on me a little bit. I think I’m kind of liking it a little more than the Christmas one. I don’t really have a favorite.”

Gardner said that the Halloween show has grown each year, and that the community has enjoyed it. At first, he was worried about how his neighbors would react, but he said they seem to enjoy it. While he is pleased by the community reaction, that isn’t why he started doing this.

The community has expressed their interest and thanked him both in-person and through Facebook. Gardner views his show as his way of giving back to the community, despite only living in Oxford for five years.

“I just enjoy doing it for my grandkids. It’s almost become like a hobby for me,” Gardner said. “I’ve always tinkered with electronics and everything, but I always like coming up with new things.”

Gardner said that aside from the lights themselves, everything in the display is hand-built. However, he said putting everything together and programming the lights to actually do what he wants them to do is very time-consuming.

A lot of elements of the display stay up year-round, with spiders getting swapped for snowflakes and other decor being switched around. The tree he displays, on the other hand, takes about three hours to put up on its own.

He said he is doing his best to make the display more modular and less time consuming each year. His favorite part of putting together the show is programming the lights on the computer.

“The only difference between mine and everybody else is just the synchronization of the lights and the music,” Gardner said. “Other ones … they’ll have the lights or maybe spooky music playing or something, but nothing is synced and choreographed to the music. It’s kind of a unique thing, not a lot of people do it.”

Gardner said that they are usually busiest on the weekends leading up to Halloween. Usually people stop by once it gets dark, because that is when they are able to appreciate it in full.

For more information about his show, people can visit his Facebook page, Gardner Lights.