Your news this week: Babas & Borshch creates fund- Page 2 Village of Andrew meeting - Page 3 Letters to Santa - Page 9
See our special Christmas section inside this issue!
www.LamontLeader.com
Vol. 10, No. 8, Tuesday, December 16, 2014
A Klos family Christmas complete with sounds of the season
MICHELLE PINON PHOTOS
Prince Drive and 48 Street in Lamont is a wonderful place to visit this holiday season. The Klos residence has a great light show and folks can tune in to listen to Christmas carols from the comfort of their vehicle. Michelle Pinon Editor
Children change everything. For Mike and Rhonda Klos their girl Rachel was no exception. When Rachel was two-and-ahalf years-old she pleaded, “Daddy please put up lights,” and so, the transformation of their front yard began for this Lamont family. “It started out with hand-me-downs from Rhonda’s parents,” says Mike. Because Halloween is Mike’s favourite occasion he decided to do an experiment with controls, programming lights to sound the following year. This year, Mike decid-
ed to go all out with Wow Lights Productions and purchased a LightO-Rama controller, and has spent the last four months programming Christmas music to lights. “You have to program each song,” added Mike, which has consumed many off his off hours from his shift work with Prairie Emergency Medical Services. “I learned this by the seat of my pants,” jokes Mike, who now has about 30 Christmas songs in his repertoire. For a simple song, Mike says it can take between one to two hours to program. He says it was a bit strange sitting in front of his laptop programming Christmas songs in the middle of summer.
“It was an interesting learning process.” says Mike, who recommends the process to someone who is very patient. When asked if he’s a patient person, Rachel jumps in to say, “He’s as patient as he’s ever going to be,” with a grin. Mike does acknowledge that he “kind of” threw himself into the project that has evolved over the past three years. “It has become a family affair,” adds Mike. “You Tube has a plethora of how to’s,” says Mike, which has been extremely helpful. Mike says you have to have a lot of extension chords because each light string has to have its own channel. That’s where Rhonda came in
helping with those cords for Mike. He flippantly says, “She’s in charge of quality control and has the final say!” Now, several of the neighbours walk by to make sure the music will be on so they can enjoy the sounds and sights while making the rounds with their dogs or driving around to listen in their vehicles. With an FM transmitter, folks can listen to holiday music when they tune into 88.3 FM. So head on down to Prince Drive and 50th Street to listen to Christmas tunes this holiday season. You’ll be very glad you did.
Mike and Rhonda’s five-year-old daughter Rachel is their biggest reason for the season and the impetus behind their elaborate Light-A-Rama system that allows people to program music and lights to operate in sync with each other.