This year, however, the light show in the pink Victorian on the corner of Minnesota and Newport avenues will be significantly reduced due to a back injury.

In 2001, he had surgery and hoped it would be the last, but the pain has returned and has made this year's light spectacle impossible.

"I usually start setting up the lights in September," Ornellas said. "But my back pain came back and I just couldn't do it."

Ornellas received several offers from residents and clubs to help him out this year, when they learned of his situation. But he says the maintenance and need to direct traffic with flares is too much to ask of volunteers.

One neighbor, a seventh-grader from Ida Price Middle School, however, won him over.

"Patrick May is helping me set up some lights around the plants," Ornellas said. "I thought it would be OK since it's for community service hours for his school. He's been wanting to help for a long time."

The lights will be blues and reds, the colors of the lights donated to Ornellas in the last few months. Ornellas considers himself a Christmas decorating connoisseur.

The glowing tradition started with an 8-foot star on top of his roof.

"Over the years, he moved from the roof, to the balconies, to the bushes and away he went," said Ornellas' wife, Paulette.

The Victorian and its topiary gardens shone every year with an array of lights that blink and lights that move. Mr. and Mrs. Claus even dropped by every year to visit with neighborhood children.

Ornellas also has a few decorative reindeer that he bought 15 years ago. From the star on top to the elephant and giraffe topiaries in his garden, Ornellas prefers to make his own decorations.

"I like stuff that nobody has," he said.

His wife understands that the light show has mushroomed.

"He thinks of new things to do every year by himself," she said. "I enjoy it because it's great to look out the windows and see the lights."

Yet even with all that power, Ornellas is environmentally conscious.

He recycles Christmas lights and often finds boxes of lights anonymously left at his door.

People donate lights that have one or more bulbs burned out and he replaces the bulbs and then donates lights to History San Jose because he already has so many. He has received more than 150,000 lights over the years from anonymous donors.

But of all the lights that he's received each year, he only has one true favorite.

"He loves movement lights," his wife said. "They get his juices flowing."

Ornellas wants neighbors to know that he'll be back in 2006.