By: Lily Groves
If you give a houseful of electricians the month of December, what do you get? A spectacular display of Christmas lights and an ongoing family tradition.
For Brian and Amy Scott, the decision to line their yard with themed lights, as they have been doing every holiday season of their 25-year marriage, was a simple one. Their yearly spectacles carry on Brian Scott’s electric legacy, which began with his lit-up childhood home and continues on as a viral local sensation.
Today, years after Brian Scott’s family home became the first full color photograph in the local newspaper, the Scotts’ beloved 2025 Taylor Swift-themed light display glitters with a full set dedicated to the pop star. For some visitors, locals, out-of-town guests, and Wheaton College students alike, visiting the colloquially known “Swiftmas House” in Naperville, Ill, has become a holiday tradition of its own. Now in its third Swift-themed year, this year’s display pays tribute to three of Swift’s “eras” from her albums “The Life of a Showgirl,” “Midnights,” and “Lover”.
Amy Scott commented on the reactions that echo from the nightly line of cars outside her home, saying, “It’s just pure delight, pure joy, and innocence.”
The Scott home’s previous light show themes have ranged from Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” to the Cubs’ 2016 World Series victory; this year marks the end of a 3-year Taylor Swift period. Over these few years, Amy Scott has seen familiar faces reappear. “I’m starting to build those connections, and I’m remembering them, they’re remembering me, and we’re getting to reconnect year after year,” she said.
After introducing the idea of a Taylor Swift display to her daughters Emily and Rebecca in 2023, Amy Scott said the two were convinced that the house would go viral. The Scotts’ home did indeed quickly pick up traction on Instagram, primarily from strangers’ posts. Amy Scott said that although they have made social media accounts for their home in the past, “we don’t even know our own password, so we do not help promote it; it’s all other people.”
While the Scotts’ “Swiftmas House” became an overnight sensation, other light displays around Chicagoland also spread holiday cheer year after year with smaller audiences. Brian and Melissa Pietrzak’s show, a self-programmed musical set, attempts to highlight the Christian message of Jesus’ birth at Christmastime to their Wheaton, Ill. neighborhood.
Melissa is an administrative staff member at Wheaton College’s Student Health Center, and her husband Brian is a software developer. They always include multiple sacred songs and Linus’ Luke 2 monologue from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” during their 15-minute audio loop. Many celebratory displays are “glitz and glam, they’re a big party, and it’s super fun,” said Melissa Pietrzak, but “our family wants to just raise a little flag and say that this house believes in Jesus and that’s what we’re celebrating.”
Brian Pietrzak uses his background in software development to uniquely program his display, often visualizing familiar characters through a series of lit trees and snowflakes. During Linus’s speech, the trees glow yellow with a black stripe, reflecting Charlie Brown’s iconic shirt.
Although preprogrammed lights are available through companies such as xLights, Brian Pietrzak instead chooses to spend upwards of 30 hours programming each song. “They’re fun, but I’ve seen all those, so I know where they came from,” said Brian Pietrzak about predesigned displays. “I’m more interested in original programming, communicating something, and a message being there.”
Another local Chicagoland show in Downers Grove, IL, put together by the Boucher family, also prioritizes unique programming. The head lighting designer is Robby Boucher, a computer science major at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who works out of his dorm room from September through November to program each year’s improvements.
The rest of the family takes on other roles. “I design everything, and my siblings are the muscle. My dad signs off on safety; he is the safety guy. My mom is supportive along the way,” Boucher said. “It’s a whole family effort.”
On a college student’s budget, Boucher has to hold off on big dreams to add to his family’s display, which he hopes will happen someday after graduation. The Pietrzaks and Scotts also noted that diving into the Christmas lights hobby is not always cost-effective, but every family has a unique way of adapting to this challenge.
The Scotts’ stay resourceful through handmaking a plethora of constructed sets, some of which are made from a recycled bedframe, while their signs are printed at the printing business they own, Blooming Color, located in Naperville, Ill. While Brian Pietrzak’s display features a sleeker aesthetic than the “Swiftmas House”, he also limits his resources. His show is around 7,000 pixels, while some other nearby extravaganzas have around 10 times that amount. “I don’t want to go much further,” Brian Pietrzak said, “It becomes a spectacle at some point.”
Light display enthusiasts all have different ways of making their extravagant home decorations come together by the time December rolls around. Throughout the many hours of preparation and constant threat of weather-related malfunctions, these families all share one goal. As Amy Scott remarked, they all work “to spread hope to people in a very dark time.”
