The origins of Synchronized Christmas go way back to a childhood fascination with Christmas lights, and that “one house” that had to be seen every year. As the owner, Don Teague, grew older the Christmas lighting bug was still there, but it wouldn’t be until a random encounter at a bar that everything was set into motion.
Hi there. It’s Don. Let me tell you the Childhood story.
Our story begins in the early 1980’s in a small town near Fort Worth, Texas. Each year my parents would take me and my sisters out to look at Christmas lights. I remember two distinct displays from my childhood. The first was a court that had all the houses lit up in white Christmas lights. This wasn’t the big neighborhood in Arlington, Texas, rather it was small street with about 11 houses total.
However, the one house that I really remember wasn’t anything super fancy at all. There were some wooden cutouts in the yard along with a Santa, Sleigh and Reindeer. The one thing that set it apart from everything else, in my childhood eyes, was the music. The folks that lived there couldn’t have had anything other than a radio, tape player or even an 8 track player (we didn’t have CD’s or the Internet yet) with speakers in the yard. To my childhood eyes though, it was the GREATEST thing ever.
This started by fascination with Christmas lights as a child and would lay the foundation for Synchronized Christmas.
And now the story continues as an adult.
It’s the year 2000. Windows 2000 and ME are released. The first resident crew enters the International Space Station, and yours truly is spending virtually every weeknight at a local restaurant. Being single at the time and having nothing better to do, it’s where I ended up.
Long story short, I got to talking to another regular there who worked at a local Dallas area Ice Skating Rink. One thing lead to another I ended up with a part time job there.
What I didn’t know at the time was that this mall put a Christmas tree in the middle of the ice rink. Wouldn’t you know it, my first few days there the tree was going up. I just happen to be there when someone was programming the tree.
I watched a person tap keys on a keyboard and the tree would then react in the same pattern he tapped. I’d found what I wanted to do. It would be another 5 years before my first display at the house, and 3 years after that before the first customer.
Our main focus is the custom programming of Light-O-Rama powered displays. This allows us to focus on one thing, and be very, very good at it. You may not realize it, but you’ve seen our work in various places around the world.
Three of our customers have appeared on ABC’s The Great Christmas Light Fight. One of them won their episode. We’ve also programmed displays in the United States, Canada, Australia, Curaçao and Aruba. We also work directly with other installers who put our programming in their customer display’s.
We also work with you to design a display that will have everyone in your community talking.