Cherry Hills Light Show a Labor of Love for Champaign Resident

The musically accompanied Christmas lights show at Prospect Avenue and Greencroft Drive in Champaign — known as “Lighting up the ‘Croft” — isn’t in its full glory this holiday season, as the homeowners have offered a subdued version sans music.

But it certainly has inspired at least one Champaign resident.

“I’ve loved Christmas lights ever since I was a child,” said Brian Peterson of Champaign. “I’ve always been impressed with the music synchronized displays I’ve seen at other homes and wondered how they did it.

“One year, my family and I were watching the display at Prospect and Greencroft when my wife said to me, ‘I bet you could do something like this.’ That’s all the permission I needed.”

Peterson’s quest began, and the result is evident at 2815 Cherry Hills Drive in Champaign.

“With some research I found the open source xLights software and an entire community,” said Peterson, who has lived in the C-U area for nearly 20 years and has been at his current address since 2018. “This is my second year synchronizing my lights to music. In 2023 I had over 600 LED lights in my display, this year I have nearly 3,000.”

Like many who go to great lengths to create these elaborate performances, Peterson began preparing months ago.

“I wanted to get an early start this year and began putting up my lights in late September,” said Peterson, a software engineer who works from home. “Over a few days, with a month or more of pre-planning, I got everything up surprisingly quickly. In 2023 wind was already an issue with the few I had. This year, with many more lights, I’ve had to try several different approaches to prevent my lights from getting tangled or blown up onto the roof.”

The show starts at dusk and runs until 10 p.m. It goes through Jan. 5. One of the songs Peterson sequenced this season is “Raining Tacos (On Christmas Eve)” by Parry Gripp.

“Of my current playlist, Raining Tacos (On Christmas Eve) by Parry Gripp is my favorite,” Peterson said. “It is also the first song I ever sequenced. One of my sons once asked me to play the original version of the song on YouTube because he had heard it in a Roblox game. When I got started with xLights, I found a sequence for the Christmas version of Raining Tacos shared by the community and I had to have it in my show. To impress my son of course. This year I created a new custom singing taco face for the song.”