Wauwatosa man creates interactive Christmas light display

WAUWATOSA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- A Wauwatosa man is sharing his enthusiasm for the holidays with the world.

Mike Walczak set up his front yard's Christmas lights into an interactive website.

On mkelights.com, users can switch a dozen different elements in the display on or off.

"It's just fun to see how much people actually enjoy it," Walczak said.

Walczak says he's always been interested in computer programming as a hobby, and being a "hardcore Christmas" fan, this made sense for him.

Since launching this year's interactive live stream the day after Thanksgiving, there have been more than 60,000 individual commands given to his lights.

Mike's wife, Katie, says she's had to step up her Christmas enthusiasm to match her husband's.

"Everybody loves Christmastime but he definitely has rubbed off on me and made me enjoy it even more," she said. "That's what Christmas is all about - family."

The website's been used in nearly 60 countries.

"We may be completely different in so many ways, but there's a lot of people around the world that unify on that singular topic of Christmas," Mike said.

Mike plans to add more lights next week to fill an empty space in the yard that he says takes up too much room in the webcam's frame.