CLAREMONT, Calif.- The "Christmas House" can keep blazing with thousands of lights, but its creator should meet with angry neighbors and try to work out a compromise that will bring everybody some holiday cheer, the City Council said. The council declined on Tuesday to trim the operating hours of the elaborate light show that draws thousands of people to a Whittier Avenue home every December.

However, the council encouraged Richard Viselli, 55, to meet with concerned neighbors before the holiday and suggested city staff can act as mediators.

Last year, Viselli decorated his home with more than 58,000 Christmas lights and synchronized them to music. He ran the display from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. nightly during December.

Eleven neighbor households, however, asked the city to limit the display and said it brought noise, traffic and litter. The coalition of neighbors was led by Robert Swartz, husband of the individual who went postal during the peak of the Christmas 2006 light display's popularity.

On Christmas Eve, the neighborhood dispute between the Swartzes and Viselli reached its climax.

The number of visitors to the neighborhood was the highest of the season. The music blasting from cars was louder than it had ever been.

Inside the Swartz family dining room, Christmas Eve dinner was disrupted by noise, by light and by hundreds of visiting strangers they say were peering through their dining room window.

Barbara Swartz’s patience ran out. With her husband at her back, she walked across the street to Viselli’s home, and with an audience of hundreds of light-show watchers, knocked on his door.

When Viselli opened the door, Barbara Swartz ran into the home, screamed at Viselli to turn down his music, and told him he “completely ruined Christmas.”

Viselli says he then tried to push her out of the house - Swartz says he slammed the door on her - and at the point of contact Swartz lunged at Viselli and attempted to strangle him.

Robert Swartz pulled his wife off Viselli, and as she stormed away from the home, Barbara Swartz grabbed a string of Christmas lights and yanked them off the house. The vandalism caused expensive damage to Viselli’s complex electrical system, he claims.

Police arrived to the scene, but did not arrest Swartz because Viselli declined to press charges. Viselli said that despite Swartz’s misdeed, she shouldn’t have to spend Christmas Eve in jail.

After the council meeting, Viselli said he was willing to work out a compromise. But neighbor Robert Swartz was skeptical.

"We will not be able to work out the issues between us," he said.