Lasers and projectors are ending the old-fashioned tradition of stringing up lights Strolling your neighborhood this December, it?s clear the halls are decked a bit differently than they were in the days of yore. Instead of twinkling strings of lights up on the housetop, there are spinning stars of wonder, digital flurries, and animated boughs of holly fa-la-la-la-laing across every front porch.
Like a freak snowstorm, these "laser projector" lights have blanketed the winter landscape?a casual survey of my Los Angeles street shows them being used on every third house. You can find a wide variety of projector lights stacked into displays at your local hardware store, including the most popular version, the Star Shower, which has remained the top-selling product in Amazon.com's Lawn, Garden and Patio department for weeks. There are "Patriot" versions and even Star Wars-themed ones, should you want to put Santa Vader on your door. Fans of projection lights welcome this Pink Floyd-by-way-of-North Pole innovation, which they see as a fresh take on an inefficient, and sometimes dangerous, tradition. "I think they're pretty," says Kalee Thompson, a writer who lives in the Highland Park neighborhood of LA. "We need more new outdoor lights, but maybe these would last longer and be more cost-effective?and you?d be less likely to fall off a ladder."

Photo by Ellie Sherven

Photo by Alissa Walke...