Ryan and Kayla Jones at their Wyndham Downs home, where they have presented an elaborate annual Christmas lights and music show since 2014. Photo by Bill Straus
Wyndham Downs, the south Lexington neighborhood that Ryan and Kayla Jones call home, is typically pretty quiet, but when December rolls around, the streets get a little busier ... and brighter.
The Joneses are largely to thank for that. Since 2014, they have transformed their home on Abbington Hill into a full-blown holiday attraction for the month of December, with Ryan not only hanging hundreds of Christmas lights but also synchronizing them to music using a complex programming process.
He does every step himself, despite being legally blind due to a degenerative visual impairment.
Ryan traces his fascination with Christmas – and more specifically, Christmas lights – to his childhood, when his vision was more intact.
“My family always loved Christmas,” said Ryan, adding that a favorite holiday pastime for his family was to drive around and look at all the holiday light displays. His family also traditionally decked out its own home with Christmas lights each year, from the bushes in the yard to a star on top of the chimney.
“I always thought it would be fun to do as I got older and had a place of my own,” he said.
After living in townhouses in Kentucky and Florida since they married in 2010, Ryan and Kayla were thrilled to move into a house in Lexington – in no small part because they knew Ryan could start putting up his own Christmas display. Aware that a few classic white lights along the roof weren’t going to cut it, he started with about 500 lights the first year. This season’s display will showcase more than 11,000 lights synchronized to a varying selection of Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s epic holiday rock anthems using a software called Light-O-Rama.
To design his annual light show, Ryan Jones utilizes a light-sychronizing program called Light-O-Rama as well as software designed to help visually impaired people use computers. The show uses around 11,000 bulbs, synchronized to music. Photo by Bill Straus
Like many computer software programs, Light-O-Rama was largely designed for a user who can access it by sight. “A lot of people who can visually use this program can drag and drop and cut,” he explained.
Ryan – who works for Paciello Group, a company that designs computer software to help visually impaired people use computers – doesn’t let the added challenge deter him. In fact, while it’s common for Light-O-Rama users to purchase pre-programmed tunes, Ryan prefers to have complete creative control, hand-programming each song himself to fit the theme he and Kayla have chosen each year.
“Everything has to be hand-programmed,” he explained.
That process involves dividing each song into increments that are half of a tenth of a second long, with each channel of lights programmed to do something different for each individual increment. With each three- to four-minute song taking somewhere in the ballpark of 40-60 hours to program, the project is a labor of love for Ryan, who uses a special computer software called JAWS (Job Access with Speech) to read the information from the screen out loud.
Programming usually begins in August for Ryan, to allow him to start hanging lights in October. With a musical background as a drummer, Ryan makes precision a top priority. The music that accompanies the lights is broadcast from 89.5 FM using a low power transmitter, so that folks driving by can tune in to hear the music in their cars. The full show typically lasts about 25-30 minutes and includes six to seven songs, with Biblical narration by Kayla woven throughout.
“The lights are fun, but we want to make sure we share the Christmas story, which is what this is all actually about,” Ryan said.
The show runs nightly from Dec. 1-Jan.1, repeating a handful of times each night between 6:30-9 p.m.; if there’s a crowd, they will sometimes run the show a bit later to ensure everyone gets to see it. The show starts itself thanks to computer programming; but with a little help from cameras, Ryan and Kayla can check that everything is running smoothly even if they aren’t home. The neighbors keep an eye out, too.
“That’s such a blessing,” Kayla said. “You could have a disgruntled neighbor who doesn’t enjoy it, but everyone we’ve talked to really enjoys it. We just appreciate our neighbors so much because we do [drive additional] traffic ... and we understand that that is an inconvenience for them, and they always take it in stride.”
While the sight of Ryan on the roof hanging lights raises the occasional question from neighbors and friends, Kayla is quick to reassure he knows what he’s doing. Ryan’s dad, Bob Jones, a University of Kentucky football kicker from 1968-70, taught Ryan how to hang Christmas lights the right way as he was growing up. Ryan’s parents now live in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and occasionally come by to help hang lights – but Ryan has become a pro on his own, even on the roof.
“There’s only one rule, and that’s just ‘don’t fall off,’” Ryan said with a laugh. “That’s the only rule you have to follow.”
Ryan has Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis (LCA), a rare, inherited eye condition that affects the retina and gets progressively worse. When he was growing up, he could see the lights on houses, watch television and read large-print, 18-point-font books, but since he’s been in his 20s, he has primarily only been able to see darkness and light right in front of his face. His peripheral vision works best, so he can see the lights as he programs them if they are near his face.
While Ryan has a mental image of what he’s working toward, Kayla is always on hand to help if needed. But when they met, it was Kayla who needed Ryan’s help. Kayla, who was teaching sixth grade in London, Kentucky, at the time, was walking through the airport in Washington, D.C., when she saw Ryan sitting at his gate and felt called to talk to him. She sat down and struck up a conversation with him, not realizing he was visually impaired until after they had been chatting a bit and she noticed his cane tucked under his chair.
“I had a student in my class who was visually impaired, and I felt lost,” she said. After realizing that Ryan was visually impaired too, she opened up to him in that first conversation about how much she wanted to help this student but didn’t know where to start. “So [Ryan] said ‘here’s my business card – when you get back home email me and I’ll send you some material.’” He followed up on his promise, and the two stayed in touch – the rest, as they say, is history.
“It was really meant to be – that just doesn’t happen,” she said.
Kayla now teaches English as a second language online to Chinese children and is exploring a new vocation as a children’s book author. She recently finished a story centering on a main character named Ryan, who is visually impaired and uses all of his senses besides sight to choose the best Christmas tree.
It’s a story that she and Ryan both enjoy sharing, to reinforce that nothing is impossible, no matter the obstacles one may face.
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The Joneses’ holiday show is located at 1748 Abbington Hill and takes place Dec. 1-Jan. 1, 6:30-9 p.m. nightly, except during inclement weather. Tune into 89.5 FM for the accompanying music. Photo furnished
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The Joneses’ holiday show is located at 1748 Abbington Hill and takes place Dec. 1-Jan. 1, 6:30-9 p.m. nightly, except during inclement weather. Tune into 89.5 FM for the accompanying music. Photo furnished