About 8 p.m. on December 25, 2008 I was looking out my 2nd story bedroom window, facing south. The sky was clear and the temperature was around 10 degrees. At approximately 45 degrees over the horizon towards the southwest I saw a very bright object -- brighter than any object in the sky. It appeared as a flickering stationary object with colour changes. I observed this object with the naked eye for a minute. I then got out a pair of standard Bell and Howell 1944 WWII naval binoculars I have. Through these I saw that it had blue, red, green and yellow blinking lights. This went on for about 30 minutes and then disappeared. It appeared to move backwards and forwards. This was an object that was clearly lower than the stars. There was no sound.I have seen this object twice since -- on January 1 at around 9 p.m. and January 2 at around 7 a.m. In these instances I could see it better. It appears to be a ball shaped object with a large light in the midsection and two rows of lights that run 90 degree angles to the center light. The lights appear in all cases to cycle -- the center light gets bright, fades, the lights in on both axis get brighter from the center, fade, and the cycle repeats -- on about a 3 or 4 second cycle. The object exhibits retrograde motion, going up/down/east/west before fading from view.I might add that we live on a flight path for an airport that services both commercial and military aircraft. In addition, my wife is familar with military aircraft. I also am an amateur "naked eye" astronomer so I basically know what to see from my house. This is not anything we have typically seen -- and we routinely see helicopters (military and civilian), light aircraft, commercial aircraft, and military fixed wing (C-130, F-14, F-18) at very low levels (under 100 feet) We have been to most major aircraft museums and airshows so we have seen in person most common aircraft for the last 70 years. This wasn't anything we had seen.