Christmas lights are all in the family for the Farleys

The Farley Family Lights go on display at their home at 95 Farley Road, just off NC 24, tonight (Wednesday) night. It’s an endeavor that takes all of the Farleys a good portion of the year to prepare for, and the best part is that the show is free and runs nightly.

“We have been doing the animated lights like this for two years with the full show,” Joe Farley said. “We have more than 9,500 individual addressable LEDs. If you tell me you want that one light bulb over there to be blue — I can do that. You can do a lot with these that you can’t do with incandescent bulbs.”

Farley said everything in the show is run by computers.

“We have eight computers to run the show,” he said. “With everything being LED, we can change the color of every individual light. It’s not your average plug it in setup — everything you see here was hand built. One three minute song for this takes approximately 20-40 hours to make.”

Even the structures with the lights are handmade.

“Everything here is fabricated,” Farley said. “My father, Jay, is our fabricator. He fabricates everything you see from the 20-foot mega-tree to the 20-foot spinner. He does all the welding and all that. Everything here is 100% handmade. You can’t go to a store and buy anything you see here. That’s the biggest thing about this. It’s a total do-it-yourself hobby.”

Farley said he was inspired by the ABC TV show The Great Christmas Light Fight.

“I saw that and was interested in it,” he said. “It’s a learning curve. It takes a lot of time to make things look good. I like bringing it to life — and getting the community involved.”

Farley said attendees can purchase a bracelet that lets them feel the show.

“It changes with the show and makes everybody a part of the show,” he said.

The Farley Family Lights also did a Halloween show this year and drew good crowds.

“We had 100 — plus cars on Halloween,” Farley said. “Last year at Christmas, we had 100-plus cars and the weekend before they were backed up from here all the way to 24/27. But parking isn’t a problem. They can pull up and watch it from their cars and listen on the radio (92.7 FM), or they can get out their cars if they like — we have a PA in the yard.”

The current show has a run time of 30 minutes, according to Farley.

“We also have a Disney night this year — a Disney inspired show,” he said. “It runs every Friday in December. Our showtimes each night are from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. each night and the show is on a repeat schedule. Just show up, pull in and check it out.”

Farley said the show is truly a family operation.

“I do all the programming, my father, Jay, does all the fabrication, my wife, Tiffany, basically decides what we’re going to have each year with what props she wants to see,” he said. “Our kids really help a lot. We try to make it a family venture.”

Joe Farley said many people that attend don’t realize what goes into setting the show up.

“We started preparing for this Christmas show — I started ordering stuff on Jan. 17,” Joe Farley said. “It’s an all year thing, but we really enjoy doing it for everybody. We just want to see it grow.”

Those interested in finding out more about the Farley Family Lights can look them up and Facebook and TikTok. Joe Farley said the family stays in touch with people via social media in case inclement weather cancels the show.