The Christmas show must go on
Wellesley’s Cook family goes bigger and brighter with decorations on their home
DECORATING THE HOUSE WITH CHRISTMAS
lights is one of the few holiday activities that are still a go. For the Cook family in Wellesley, stringing lights around the house has been an ever-developing tradition, always trying to outdo the previous year’s display.
What originally started with having the lamp from a Christmas story displayed in their former Kitchener home window has now developed into a full light show with 25 songs synchronized to the display at their Wellesley home.
It’s become a large undertaking, with all hands on deck at 54 Ferris Drive: Ben and Laura, along with their daughter Paige and son Parker.
The project has “grown exponentially every year,” said Ben Cook. “We started with six channels and six strings of lights. And now we’re at 64 channels and I think we’re at 24-25,000.”
“Every year he adds something different. So, this year, he’s got like, these new blue and white trees. And he just added on some snowflakes and the ‘believe’ sign on the front [of the house],” added his wife, Laura.
Ben has an old work laptop that is now fully dedicated to running the light show. It operates on old software and doesn’t even have an internet connection, just a light software called Light Aroma. “There are four control boxes out there that are all connected via ethernet [cables]. And then they all turn on and off in line with the software,” Ben explained.
Having “a lot going on at once,” Ben has recruited help from a friend in Missouri. “You can get lost in it. But I have help. I have a guy actually in Kansas [City] who helps me with the programming. I did four songs myself, and spent 60 hours on four songs.”
This year’s event’s opening sequence is the lighting scene from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation with 24 other songs programmed and listenable through 100.1 FM transmitting from inside the Cooks’ home.
The house is a destination on two tours this