Dance the light away: Leroy couple takes pride in synchronized lights all while benefitting a good cause

When you were young, you and your family rode around and looked at Christmas lights; many people did. There aren’t many people who do not look at a Christmas decorated home and feel the holiday spirit in their hearts.
There aren’t many people decorating their homes with lights anymore, but it’s become a tradition for one local couple, not from a generation of decorating within their family, but for the sole purpose of putting a smile on a kid’s face.
David and Tammy Roy, of Leroy, didn’t necessarily grow up with a ton of lights on their homes for Christmas, at least not nearly as much as they do for their home now. David wasn’t too fond as a young boy when it came down to putting up lights.
“We didn’t put up many lights growing up, but I never liked putting them up, ironic, isn’t it,” he said, “because I thought it was just too much work.”
What he does remember, though, is how his parents drove around every year to see the light displays on people’s homes.
“Everyone used to decorate their house and yards, and it was so fun to see all the lights as a kid.”
David recalled that memories like that would last forever, but he wondered why there weren’t many people decorating anymore. “It’s hard to find Christmas decorations lit up these days,” he said, “so hopefully, by us doing this display, it will help create those memories for kids today, something they can remember for a lifetime as I do.”
So what changed in those years for him to not only put any lights up outside but to have his entire yard and house decorated in a large synchronized light show?
It ended up being someone else’s “fantastic display” a few years ago.
“It was in Jenerette on Hwy 90 and was called Ragin Cajun Redneck Christmas,” said David, “and I was hooked. David Landry does a great job with that display and spreading the Christmas spirit.”
He began researching on how to do something similar, and in 2014, it all started. “like my granddaughter who was born that same year, it just keeps growing every year.”
David has the help of his wife Tammy, who helps him prepare the props and set them up.
“She puts up with me all year doing this,” he said. “Couldn’t do it without her. It takes a special kind of person to tackle this with me all year!”
Since many do not put up any yard decorations for the kids to see, it’s a hidden gem when you find a home heavily decorated, but David and Tammy’s Country Christmas Lights and Music show will blow you away.
After a year off due to hurricane damage, the light show generally takes David a whole year to prepare.
“Having a background in both music and computers, it’s a necessity to pull off this type of show,” David explained. “I start in January to work on the show for December, and it usually takes the entire year to get it right.”
Many late nights and weekends for the building and sequencing to get everything correct is what it takes for David to prepare to perfect since programming all of the songs takes an extreme amount of time.
“I wouldn’t say it’s difficult as much as it is time-consuming,” he said, “building all of the props is fun, but the programming is the kicker.”
Many of the hardware comes from other countries, like China, for the RGB pixels and each light with a mini-computer chip to accept the addressing. Then there are the controllers that come from Australia and some of the networking and prop pieces come from Houston, Texas and Greenwell Springs, Louisiana.
But how does it work? With a voiceover person from San Diego, California, getting everything mentioned before to communicate and syncing the timing to each song, everything has to come together ideally to make it all coexist in the right way.
Located at 5735 Tee Robe Road in Kaplan (actually Leroy), the lights and music show, a show that takes around 3-4 weeks to get everything set up, can be viewed between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m each night; weather permitting, the show will get your hearts a fluttering and your grooves a grooving.
What’s more is the best part, according to David and Tammy.
“Seeing all of the smiles on the kids’ faces and hear them singing and dancing to something that I created,” David said, “We also have a small donation box at the front of the display with 100% of the donations going to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.”
David said that the community has been great with contributing to the cause.
“We are so thankful for that and to be able to forget about the world and all its problems for just a brief moment in keeping the Christmas spirit alive in all of God’s Children as long as we can,” he said, “Christmas is the BEST time of the year.”