X10
Several years ago my wife gave me some X10 equipment for Christmas. (This was long before the advent of the X10 pop-ups featuring pan and tilt cameras.)

Every year at Christmas time, the X10 stuff comes back out along with the Christmas decorations. All the lights usually get hooked via an X10 module. With the single press of a button on the wireless remote, all the lights can be turned on and off. Some years I even setup the clock module to automatically turn the lights on and off at a specified time.

Some time in the last year I happened across MisterHouse. When the X10 stuff came out this year, I thought I would take a closer look. After all, it is open source and it is free. A good bit of it is written in Perl. It is a pretty interesting way to set up home automation. The quick setup documentation leaves something to be desired though. One feature worth mentioning - integrated web server allowing you to control your home from anywhere you have web access to it. There are many other features as well but I shall not mention them here. For more info, check out the web site.

I doubt I will still be using this when the New Year arrives but it has been interesting to play with.

Perhaps I should setup the outside lights and let you folks turn them on/off via the web. I am sure the neighbors would love that. I guess I would need a web cam also. Maybe next year.