Lights! Projector! Christmas!

Last Halloweentide I came across a home that had what I considered a suspiciously Christmassy Halloween decoration. Well, a couple of houses, actually, as I detailed here, but the one I was most curious about was this one:

The Bat-Signal.

As I noted at the time, the red-green-gold colors of these bats made it look like a Christmas projector with a Halloween slide. I intended to return in December and investigate whether those bats had magically become something else, like bells or stars.

Well, I did return, and sure enough it seemed like the same projector was at work with a different filter.  Unfortunately -- and this is the God's honest truth, I swear -- it was very early on a Saturday morning and the whole town was socked in with fog. Here is the best picture I could get:

This would have been eerie with the Bat-Signal.

There's a house in there, and it now has stars in red and green and gold. Or it did.  Because I've gone back to that same house several mornings (using the dog as cover) to get a better picture, and now the slide show only has cartoon Christmas art:

The Santa Signal.

So, is my investigation at a standstill? I guess. It looks like a totally different projector. What was the deal with the bat/star?

I have done some snooping. Gemmy is one outfit that makes a number of these types of projectors, but nothing I saw would account for the bat/star shift.

But I was in CVS yesterday and saw this:

Star Shower, which apparently has "As Seen on TV" as part of its name, has Christmas and Halloween designs. But apparently none of them match the bat/star design exactly. In looking into it on Amazon, though, I have seen many more of these, all kinds of brands I never heard of, all in differing levels of ability to scorch your lawn and burn down your house, and I feel like I'm falling down a holiday-themed rabbit hole. I never did find bat/star.

I think I'd better stop.

But it does raise crucial two issues for me:

1) If Star Shower is Seen on TV, why haven't I seen it on TV? I used to see all these things. I'd better up my TV game.

2) When these projectors first came out, I assumed they'd be popular with the laziest decorators of all, the ones who wanted to just shove a spike in the ground, plug the device in, and go back to working on that 12-pack. But no, most houses I see with these projectors have other decorations, and some of them have many other decorations. These additional lights just become another part of the looniness.

I actually have always liked these, but my wife's not a fan. We have plenty of lights out, but they are more along the lines of the "all is calm, all is bright" variety. And no, I don't really think the projector would burn up my lawn and/or the house. My faulty timers will probably do that.