Photos: Jeff Farr
A Woodbury resident is ready to wow visitors this holiday season.
Jeff Farr is sharing some seasonal fun from his home on Copper Oaks Place with dazzling Halloween and Christmas shows.
“I’ve always been into Christmas and Halloween,” Farr says. “Growing up, we created haunted houses, and I used to live [on] a street below an elaborate Halloween display. My wife finally gave me the go [ahead] to do the lights this year. This is our first year, so we went from zero to 100 quick.”
Visitors can watch the Halloween show from 7–9:30 p.m. every night until Halloween and tune into 107.3 FM to listen to the accompanying music. The Christmas display will begin at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, with an undetermined closing date at the end of December.
Farr also hopes to turn Lights on Copper Oaks into a fundraising opportunity for Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul. “We have three kids—five and under—and our daughter has an undiagnosed genetic condition going on,” he says. “Gillette has been super helpful with everything. Our hope is to get a QR code or sign out for Gillette and light that up, for awareness of how much they do for families in Minnesota.”
We spoke with Farr about the process of creating the display.
What is the technical and physical work that goes into constructing the shows?
JF: Each individual pixel can be controlled from a program I use called xLights. We control about 7,000 plus pixels. We pick music and align [the lights to] it. For Halloween, it’s singing pumpkins and individual characters that sing different parts. They’re coral plastic props that I put pixels in. For Christmas, it’ll be singing trees. There are controller boxes that I push the sequences to and little computers that run everything.
Will the shows vary from year to year?
JF: Our plan is to do different songs every year. Right now for Halloween, we have six songs and it’s about 15 to 20 minutes in length. It starts with the pumpkins narrating, and in the middle they talk a little more and wrap up the show. The Halloween songs are Spooky Scary Skeletons, Grim Grinning Ghosts, Enter Sandman by Metallica, Toxicity by System of a Down and When The Lights Come On by Asking Alexandria … For Christmas, we’ll be doing Polar Express, Candy Cane Lane by Sia, You Make it Feel Like Christmas by Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer, a Taylor Swift mashup and Noel by Tommee Profitt.
How long does it take to set up and plan these elaborate light displays?
JF: This year it’s been a couple hundred hours. The outlines on the house are made of PVC pipe, and I drilled holes one inch apart to put each pixel in. Conceptually, there are others that have done it out there—I’ve definitely been inspired by others. I mapped it out in my head after seeing what other people were doing. I tried to accent the house as much as possible.
Next year, because I have most of the props complete, I should be able to put it up [in] 25 to 50 hours. We’re also hoping to grow it. We’re hoping to do a garage matrix—the whole two-door garage will just be lights. We’ll add more tombstones, and for Christmas add candy canes.
Plan Your Visit
Farr asks that visitors turn off their headlights and avoid blocking neighbors’ driveways when watching the show.
Lights On Copper Oaks
Halloween (October 1–31) 7–9:30 p.m.
Christmas (November 28–December 25) 6–9:30 p.m.
3173 Copper Oaks Place
Facebook: Lights On Copper Oaks
