CENTER TWP — For Brian Dancik, Christmas preparations start just after the jack o'lanterns are blown out. His wife Rebecca jokes the family goes straight from Halloween to Christmas.

But, of course, it takes time for him to test, string and arrange 10,000 Christmas lights and synchronize them to Christmas music that is broadcast on an FM transmitter, music that can be picked up on car radios close to the house at 110 Jenny Drive.

Every year for the past eight Brian Dancik has been building, expanding and tinkering with the display that covers his two-story Colonial home and its surrounding yard.

Dancik, who does field service work installing and repairing equipment for the garment-making industry, started the display nearly a decade ago.

“It's been eight years give or take. Each year I try to add something new. It's evolving, getting bigger and bigger. I'm hoping it gets better. No one's complained about it,” he said.

Asked about how big the show has become, he said, “I'd say it's about 10,000 lights. The windows and the house are outlined, the bushes, the lights in the trees. There's a 20-foot mega-tree with lights on it.”

That's impressive enough, but Dancik has paired the lights with sound.

The visual show is accompanied by sound so the lights blink on and off in time with the tunes.

And that's music that drivers-by can hear if they turn their car radios to 89.5 FM, he said.

“It's just a little FM transmitter hooked up to the computer. It only reaches a few feet from the house. As soon as you get too far away it fades out,” Dancik said.

“I've got about eight songs that randomly play throughout the show. I programmed them all myself. You tune to 89.5 FM to hear the music that runs in sync with the lights,” he said.

“The computer hooks up to independent controllers with so many outlets, and the computer turns the outlets on and off, and you try to sync up the lights to the music. If a song is playing and it hits a certain beat, the lights come on.”

Dancik said he starts getting out the Christmas lights in November because the pre-stringing work takes time and he likes to set up in reasonably warm weather.

“They are just mini-incandescent lights like you can get at Walmart or Target,” he said. But he has to test them all before he begins decorating.

“Always plug them in before you put them out to make sure they all work,” he said. “Some of the lights are just like any strand of lights. Some of them you toss, and some of them you try to fix.”

He doesn't know how long the average string lasts, but he makes it a point to buy replacements the day after Christmas during sales.

Once the lights are tested, he's ready for deployment.

“I actually made PVC frames and ziptie the lights to the frames. The frames I stick into the window wells,” Dancik said. “I use hot glue to attach the lights to the brick in the front of the house. They pop off at the end of the season, nice and clean.”

It doesn't get done in a day or even two. He likes to put it together a little at a time.

“Usually I sucker my wife's cousin Adam to help, usually for a meal and a couple of cold beers,” Dancik said.

Her cousin's help aside, Rebecca Dancik said the layout is a one-man operation.

“I make suggestions, but I'm not really sure he takes them into consideration,” she said.

“He pretty much has an idea as to what he wants to do, but it always looks nice.

“I don't know if he had a master plan. It's definitely grown. It started out small and grew each year. The kids really enjoy it and that's what keeps him growing,” she added.

Both the Danciks said the display is for their children: Evan, 12; Madeline, 9; and Nicholas, 2.

“We really love Christmas, and we go a little overboard sometimes. The kids love it, and that's why I keep doing it,” Brian Dancik said.

He added that once the lights and computer are set up to cue the light display, “you kind of forget about it.”

The lights come on automatically at 5 p.m. and shut off at 10 p.m. on weeknights and 11 p.m. on weekends.

The computer cycles through the song play list automatically, playing one and then pausing for 30 seconds before the next song and synchronized light show starts.

Ghosts of Christmas past in the form of a huge electric bill come January don't haunt the Danciks either.

Dancik said, “It's 10,000 lights but they flicker on an off. It's not a huge jump in the bill, not high enough to stop.”

And the response from the neighborhood has been fairly low key, he said. There aren't any long lines of spectators along his street.

“There's a few that pull up and sit around the house and watch the show. It's more around Christmastime when out-of-town guests come through, I guess.”

“I don't have a set time to take it down,” he said. “The first full week in January, I will wind it up.”

But until then, the Danciks, their children, their neighbors and those who have heard of the display through word of mouth will bask in the lights' glow.

Rebecca Dancik said, “He loves everything Christmas, and so do we. It's really nice.”