HELLO FUTURE: The Future of Christmas Lights — From Clark Griswold to Rudolph the Red Nose Drone

Speaker 1 (00:07):
The other day, I'm driving down the highway and I
see I swear it was as if I saw the
North Pole collide with the Polar Express having a party
with the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny on these
people's front lawn. I mean, I'm old enough to remember
when Christmas lights were just a couple of led strings
that were going around the bushes and that was it
and put a reef on the door. Not these days, folks,
It is a technological wonder on America's front lawns. Hello, Future,
It's me keV and this is a dispatch from the
Digital Frontier. The planet is Earth, the year is twenty
twenty five, and my name is Kevin SURRILLI. Today I'm
taking a deep dive look at the future of Christmas lights.
Joining me now is a guy who knows a thing
or two about Christmas lights. He's the COO of Novelty Lights,
which is one of the big brightest See what I
did there, Christmas light holiday light displays, and not just
the country in the world. I mean, I think he knows.
The big guy himself up in the North Pall, Jim
Hardaway's here. Jim, thanks for coming on to meet the future?
How did you get into this line of work?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
So, actually I got into the lighting business thirty seven
years ago. Actually it was in entertainment lighting, so mobile Djaye,
getting disco lights and things like that, and then that
branched out into theatrical lighting and architectural lighting, and then
it leaped into this wonderful world of Christmas lighting.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
So what is it about Christmas lights that you think
has really taken off thirty years ago? What was it like?
And then compare it to today.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
So back of the day when we all look back
and we look at Clark Griswold and Christmas vacation and
he put all these incandescent lights and the grid went
down when he powered it up so much energy that
like the whole town went dark when he did that
famous plug.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Ins, such a great movie.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
And so back then Christmas lights were using incandescent technology.
Led hadn't. It wasn't even a glimmer And even doctor Knakamura's.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
I don't even know what incandescent technology is.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Incandescent is basically like tungsten filaments, like the old Edison
bulbs that we got really hot, right, And then that
kind of transitioned into halogen because as we tried to
conserve energy, we tried to find new methodologies. So halogen
came about, fluorescent came about, and fluorescent was probably the
biggest abomination in the lighting industry, horrible light. And then
the birth of the white LED and LED technology really
came to be some years back, and now it's really
taken over everything.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
So why is LED technology so important?

Speaker 2 (02:51):
So LEDU technology is important because it's energy efficient. Also,
it's discrete in the sense that a blue LED is
a blue LED, red LED is red LED. Where back
in the day you took the tungsten light that came
out was warm white. It was just basically heat radiating
off this filaments, and then they painted the bulbs to
then pick up the color of the reds and the
blues and the greens and all the traditional Christmas color bolts.
So now LED does it differently in the sense that
it actually admits the color itself. It doesn't need the paint.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
If mister Griswold had LED lighting, you probably wouldn't have
had the major blow up fiasco.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
No, the grid would not have gone down.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
The grid would not have gone down. Okay, so that
was like thirty years ago. Have you just noticed though,
that people are going gangbusters for their lights every year?
Just walk me through from a visual standpoint thirty years ago,
what the trend was versus today. I mean, I grew
up in a house old Berg. God bless my dad
because that guy he put up I'm talking about, you know,
like those gas stations with the inflatable things that go,
oh yeah yeah. My dad makes the gas station blow
up guy look humble because he puts up in the
Heyday six inflatable mega inflatables. I mean, he's got a
blueprint of every year of where Santa goes, where the
toy Soldier goes. I mean, these things are like seven
feet tall. And then he's got the Snowman and I'm like, Dad,
this looks like the North Pole war Plan. I mean, seriously,
it's insane how people have really latched on to holiday
light displays.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Well, part of that is is it's in our culture.
So the culture was exemplified by that movie. However, the
very first Christmas light show was actually done in Colorado,
So the actual birthplace of Christmas lights is Colorado. So
we're happy to be based in Colorado. But from that
whole transition and that iconic movie. A Christmas culture has
been born. Wow, and through that the keeping up with
the Joneses. My neighbor does this huge display, so I've
got to do one better, and then that turns into putting.
In some places they have little hot cocoa stands out
of the streets, so when the people are driving by,
they sort of hot cocoa. I mean, it's become this
cultural icon and a cornerstone in Americana. It's it's just amazing.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
So you credit National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation with really revolutionizing
Christmas lights the way that we see it in American culture.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, the going all out aspect of it. Absolutely, life
imitates art.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
That's really incredible because as we think about the holidays
and traditions and our culture and technology became more readily
available with LED lights and the price went down. Where
you predict that the future of light displays are going.
I mean, are we gonna have drones? Are we gonna
have you know, reindeer replica drones flying around with Rudolph
on the roof.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
That's kind of already. That's kind of already there.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
So I saw Wow.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
I saw a social post the other day where people
were connecting light strings to drones and then flying them
up in the air and crisscrossing them to make like
a mid air Christmas tree looking feature. So part of
the show is that the other aspect is is prior
to LED, the light shows that were sound to light controlled.
When you're driving through a neighborhood and they're doing the
playing music or whatever it was on off type of controller,
so it would turn the tree on and then it
would turn these sets of lights on the bushes on,
all synced to music. Well, now it's transitioned to where
each LED node has an ip address which is controlled
discreetly from a computer controller.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Stop.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yeah, wow.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
I mean it is remarkable because some Christmas lore, you know,
back when the Germans used to put the which is
a horrible idea, but put the candles on the trees.
I mean, think about how much of a fire hazard
that is. I mean you could take out all the time.
And then one hundred and fifty years later, now we're
talking about drones on Rudolph and IPO codes and all
this off and decking out a grid. I mean, it
is really really crazy. What are some of the trends
that you're seeing this year or in the last couple
of years, that people are are really doing a lot
more of So.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
One of the things that's emerged in the last couple
of years is this thing called permanent lighting, and permanent
lighting is an under eve lighting. One of the scary
parts of doing Christmas displays is getting up on a
ladder and falling off a ladder, which I think there
was a scene.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
In that Griswold also in Home Alone Alone too.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, yeah, you're right, And so there is that fear.
And then as we age, we think we can get
up on the roof, but sometimes the wife says, hey,
you're the breadwinner. You don't do that this year. You're
going to hire somebody to get up on the roof
and do that. Well, the concept of the permanent lighting
is is to try to replace that roofline look that
you get with traditional lights with an all year spin
to it. So yes, they can do your Christmas colors
and they move in Christmas patterns, but during the rest
of the year you can use them in white color
as kind of a safety security lighting. You can program
it so you hit a button and then now your
lights outside are flashing in your team colors, right, So
there's that aspect of it for me.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
I'm hearing you talk about this something and I can't
even remember to empty the trash on time. So I
just think having to produce the Mummer's Parade. If you're
from Philly, then you get that reference, or the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade. I was always more of a toy
train kind of guy, like I like to do the
miniature replicas and that. But this is fascinating to me
that what you're talking about is year round light displays.
I mean, that's awesome. I was automation and robotics impacting
your field.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
So there are folks that integrate what we call animatronics
into well.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
At Disney reference, it's a small role after all.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
So animatronics is being adopted into the displays as well
because people are fascinated by lights, but they're also fascinated
by characters that are moving and supposedly speaking and things
like that. So animatronics are involved in that robotic lighting,
like entertainment lighting with that produced beams of light on
the roofline and doing like search light type of lighting.
So it's only expanding and led is what's really kind
of driving that because you can be so much more
creative with LV than you could with incandescence.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Talk to me more about animatronics and the holiday stuff
that you're seeing.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Sure, so Halloween's been more of a faster adopter.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Honestly, Halloween is given the holiday Christmas displays of run
for its money.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Oh absolutely. And there's some trade shows around that are
just all about Halloween products and you'll walk through there
and not only that will it be animatronics, but there's
using compressed air to like make a skull.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Go jump out. Yeah, totally. It's like that.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
In the Christmas world. You have reindeers who are moving
their heads, playing their heads back and forth. You have
Santa Claus waving.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
If you're a kid, an animatronic robot Santa is not Santa,
you know what I'm saying. So to me, you got
to think at or more creatively. I could see an
animatronic Nativity scene candidly, you know, and you know you
got the animals. You could see the animatronics being robotics,
but I could also see some reindeer. I like the
drones and the reindeer. But we got to evolve our
creativity as a culture. As a society. Jim Hardaway, COO
of Novelty Lights, one of the best Christmas lights display
companies in the country. What characters are arriving onto the
scene in the zeitgeist of our society that are taking
You know, obviously we got Santa, we got missus Claus,
we got all the Reindeer. What are some of the
periphery characters of Christmas icons that are that are starting
to be more popular as we tell the story on
our front lawns and on our roofs.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
It kind of all ties back into like Whovill, the
Gritole cris yes, and trying to create like Whoville scene.
So the front of a house can be like a
Whoville scene, right, and then you've got some Whovill animatronics
and and really it's it lends itself to the creative
mind of the homeowner or business that wants to convey
a message, and it's really to bring people in and
bring people together because of the love of Christmas and
the Christmas like culture. I do envision Elon Musk having
a robot Santa at some point, so someone could take
one of Elon's.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Robots robots coming down the check I don't know. I
don't think Santa should ever be a robot. I'm just
gonna say that, honestly, you guys should be calling the
North Pole to figure out what technology that guy uses
to get around the world one night and to drop
off all of those gifts. I mean, he's probably that slave.
He's got to have some quantum computing component to it.
But maybe the folks that Nora, I know, they are
the ones who track them. But you know, I also,
as you think of I'm really fascinated at how Hollywood
culture has impacted what Americans traditions are. I never thought
of that, and that was a really big meet the
future moment for me that I just had, which is
how storytelling at a national level can help to inspire
families and to help really provide a template for families
to embrace traditions. And these are traditions that we all share,
regardless of our political ideologies, regardless of even the holidays
that we celebrate. But it is really really interesting, as
you predict the future for the next ten and twenty years,
what do you think and doesn't have to be it
can be rooted in your imagination, gym. It doesn't have
to be rooted in any business plan. What do you
predict the future of holiday lights displays are going to
look like ten twenty years from now.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
So from a technology perspective, from the light source itself,
it's going to be LED. Usually there's a fifty year
cycle on technology when it comes to lighting, and so
I don't see LED going away. I see LED being
used in more creative ways in creating augmented reality and
see things that aren't really there but they're being created
by lights protected at certain angles. And I mean there's
all sorts of things that you can see infiltrating that
The only limitation is money.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
At this point, I'm telling you, the second I get
a front lawn, I'm giving my dad a run for
his money. I'm putting up ten inflatables. I don't want
to air this SURRELLI family lore publicly. I really do
not hope to do that. I will say there were
some debates about the tackiness of the inflatables of my
father's taste on the front lawn, but it is the
I was always a big fan of the Christmas blow ups,
So when did they catch on?

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Those have only been around probably within the last ten years.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
He was ahead of the current, very basic.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
And now I mean I've seen it twenty five foot Santa.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
By the way, there's a hotel I think it's the
Saint Regis in Washington, DC where they make a life
sized gingerbread house. It's amazing. I'm a big fan of
the gingerbread. By the way, Jim, you should encourage folks
to do more gingerbread stuff. There's one house where I
grew up in Drexel Hill, which is in Delco, which
is where I grew up, and there's a community called
Drexel Hill and my side and my late grandmother Mi
me godlass this house. We would walk It was like
a maze on these people's front lawn. And it wasn't
as you would drive by. You would go on the
front lawn. How they did this every year. The older
I get, I'm thinking to myself, these strangers are walking
on the lawn and you would It was as if
you were taking a tour of the North Pole and
you said gingerbread houses and you would walk through it
and see it. So I think these mazes and interactive
experiences is kind of the future. Jim.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
There's basically drive through and walk through light displays all
over the country. Now, one of my good friends was
one of the first ones to start these these drive
through shows, right, and we've actually started to incorporate some
of that product and what we offer where their wireframes.
You know, they're basically metal frames made here in the
USA with light strings on them, with made the USA
Garland and really nice beautiful displays. And so we're driving
through and there's animation going on and there's music playing.
So I think those light parks are also going to
become more technologically advanced. So there's another future of Christmas
happening there. Transition.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
I think people when we think of technology, especially Christmas
lights and what Jim Hardaway is talking about with Christmas
lights and where it's going and animatronics and led lighting
and Hollywood's influence on it. And you know I mentioned
earlier back in the eighteen hundreds when the Germans first
had the Christmas tree and put there with candles. Well,
then flash forward to the year nineteen oh six and
this is one of my favorite holiday technology stories, which
is about this guy named Reginald Fessenden. If you've ever
heard of him, he is the inventor of the audio
radio broadcast, and so the year is nineteen oh six,
it's Christmas Eve. He invents the radio. He's Canadian born
and bentor and the first song that was ever broadcast
using radio wave technology is my personal favorite holiday song,
which is called Oh Holy Night. Love it. It's a
dear jerker, Jim. So this guy puts Oh Holy Night
on the radio because traditionally, if you think of technology,
this technology was used for military communications. So the radio
really revolutionized all of this. He has the creative mind
to put a Christmas hymn on a military technology. So
suddenly all of these ship operators are out in the
ocean and they hear a violin playing Oh Holy Night,
and they think it's angels because they're used to hearing codes. Right,
Think of every song if you're listening to this right now,
that you've ever heard on the radio. Think of every
single song you've ever heard. Imagine for the first time ever,
ai I projecting some hologram I don't know that you
think is real. Now, Imagine it's back in nineteen oh
six and it's freezing cold, and it's Christmas Eve, and
you hear Oh Holy Night playing on a violin on
what you think is going to be. I don't know
what you get morse code on and think of how
that would feel. So the experiences that we create using
technology around the holidays have been integral to us as
a society, and with the advent of AI, Jim, I'm
sure that people's imaginations are just going to start to
run wild as AI. Can You mentioned sound, you mentioned ar,
you mentioned immersive experiences on your front lawn. We can't
even conceive of where this is all headed one hundred
years from now, Jim Hardaway, I had so much fun
with this interview. I had a huge meat the Future
moment where I understood the impact that storytelling can have,
not just in the movies that we watch every year,
but in how we mimic those movies and those traditions
that people want to check you out? Where should they.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Go novelty lights dot Com?

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Awesome, Awesome, Thank you so much Jim for coming on
Hello Future. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Appreciate you.