Web Log...well sort of

2010

1/17/10 - We're trying to get all the decorations and electronics put away but the weather has made it difficult. Last weekend it was so cold (for us South Floridians) that we didn't accomplish much. We got a lot done yesterday but today the rain has delayed our progress. We've made several trips to our new storage facility with the inflatables, blow molds and trees we had already packaged. Taking care of some maintenance items we can accomplish inside (replacing a fuse on one of the control boxes, replacing a triac on one of the channels, repairing some extension cords, updating our spreadsheet of new lights purchased at after Christmas sales).

2010

2009

11/28/09 - Well we did it. To the toast of champagne and with friends and family here, we managed to start our first show tonight. We only have one song and we have some tweaking and minor details to tend to...but the lights are on. And we already have heard several heart touching stories of the joy our simply act of giving brings to so many people.

One of the new items we have this year is a "guest book" that we'd love for you to sign if you visit us. Tomorrow we will tend to some burnt out bulbs in the inflatables, get the snow machines up and running, as well as a few minor adjustments we noticed tonight...and of course more programming so we can get additional songs included in the show...probably by week's end (check the home page for a listing of songs you can hear tonight) 

11/27/09 - Final details and touches being put into place. A full day of running the over a mile of extension cords and connecting all the lights up to the control boxes. With my sister and niece's help, we also put up the large ornaments in the multi-colored and silver trees today. Also completed a check and assembly of our 40 "strobe" lights, located throughout the yard in multiple locations and strands of light. These bulbs fit in most C9 strands, replacing the existing bulbs. Sometimes you have to slightly pull up the contact at the base of the socket...but this takes time. Also went out with the rest of the masses and did a bit of shopping on "black Friday"...purchased our candy canes we provide to visitors (please don't litter with the wrappers) and also purchased a "guest book"...and idea we had from last year to allow people to sign comments and their home town during their visit.

Tomorrow, a "dress rehearsal" during the day, final electrical touches (running a few remaining extensions), mixing the "snow fluid", setting up the snow machines, getting my niece to help create our 2009 "scavenger hunt", and putting out the wireless speakers.

11/26/09 - Yesterday was a bit of a wash....literally. With about 2" of rain here, we weren't able to do a lot outside but made up for it today. With the help of my sister and her friend Susan, we finished setting up all our inflatables. We had to retire two additional inflatables this year but are also putting out three new inflatables as well (see if you can figure out which ones they are). Took out the snow machines and outdoor speakers today, ran the electric wiring for them. Tracey and Susan strung lights on several of our artificial trees and put out an animated flamingo we have. Still have two of the large trees to trim with our ornaments (for the first time this year we also trimmed the back tree with red striped icicle ornaments). Also have most of the mile of electrical cords to run tomorrow...before our FINAL test and LIGHTS ON Saturday night.

11/22/09 - Put up the "mega" tree today and added a third color (that's the tree we have hanging from the tall palm tree in the front yard. Assembled a new 12' tree on the side yard, put out the "runway lights", powered up the control boxes today...all systems go!!! Worked on repairing an inflatable by replacing the fan motor with one salvaged from a "retired" inflatable. Also put out the 10 mini trees. Was planning on building 5 additional mini trees (the ones that have been up towards the corner of the property for the last few years) this year. I wanted to make these 5 white/green. The other 10 are white/red and white/blue (5 each). But green LED lights are VERY difficult to find. Couldn't find enough of them here in South Florida to complete the project. But my sister found several (I'm only 1 set short now) in Gainesville. She'll be bringing them tomorrow. So it looks like we'll have the 5 white/green minis to add to the set (15 total).

11/21/09 - Wow....where to start. It's as busy as a bee hive around here. Garland up on the house, control boxes programmed, firmware updated, assembled outside. Lots of trees out today and last run from storage (all the inflatables).

11/19/09 - The last three days have been spent getting all the trees (artificial, twig, mega, mini...you name it) out in the yard and secured.  Yard is beginning to take shape and you can begin to get a vision for how it will look. Thanks to our friend Dennis for his help setting up the trees, finish the candy cane project and helping "fluff" the trees. It's beginning to become a tradition to have his help on one Saturday in November and we look forward very much to the afternoon together. We have many friends who volunteer to help but we've been so disorganized about picking a given Saturday and inviting them and the neighbors over to "trim the tree" and help. We have to make more of an effort to do that next year as the more this labor of love grows...the more others offer to help. We're blessed with such great friends and neighbors.

11/16/09 - More lights out tonight (candy cane rope lights around the perimeter of the yard, driveway multi-colored rope lights, LED C7 in the frangipani, LED multi color net light around the carrotwood, wreaths on the windows, mutli-colored mini lights in Brazilian pepper bush, clear mini lights in bougainvillea, six mini-trees out)...and programming of course.  ;-)

11/15/09 - Lots of outdoor work this weekend. Thanks to our friend Dennis for his help. Hung the lights (red C9, white C9 and blue icicle) on the sofit, assembled most of our artificial trees, giant wreath and "fluffed" them. Also finished our "candy canes" project, which now line the sidewalk. Made out of 2" pvc, red electrical tape and a 2' section of rebar held in place by "great stuff", they will provide the foundation for our rope lights which serves as our "barrier" to the yard (to discourage people from not entering the yard for their safety).

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!

11/09/09 - Continued trips to storage and the pool house to pull out the lights, replace bulbs and general quality control check on all lights. Put out our first lights in the yard today...starting to assemble trees. Also building new "PVC candy canes" which will serve as anchors for the rope light around the perimeter of the yard (to keep people off the grass for their safety). Using 2" PVC with two elbows at the top. Red electrical tape for the candy cane stripe. A 24" of rebar inserted half-way into the PVC and filled with "Great Stuff" to anchor the rebar in the PVC and the candy cane in the ground when done.

11/01/09 - November 1st, All Saints Day, is a big day for us. The All Hallow's Eve (aka Halloween) decorations come down first thing this morning. We retrieved our first car load full of decorations/lights from storage. We will be pulling the remainder of the items out of storage to check all the lights. Also built the five (5) additional mini trees for this year (green and white). Dedicating 1-2 hours per day/night to programming.

10/29/09 - For the last two (2) years now we've purchased control boxes from Light-O-Rama that require slight assembly. This makes the boxes less expensive. So tonight I assembled our two (2) new boxes (32 additional channels) while watching the World Series. That will bring us to 112 total channels or individually controlled light sets.

10/27/09 - Began tonight to assemble four (4) vertical, 4' "mini" trees, which will have two (2) colors each, two (2) red and white and two (2) blue and white. These 4' trees will light up in three sections, bottom, middle and top. They look GREAT! if I do say so myself. See if you can spot them in the display this year.

10/03/09 - We purchased several "vegetable trellises" at Target today to add to our "mini tree" collection and planned "tree forest" for this year. The "trellis" is used as a skeleton or shell for the lights that will be attached to it...a homemade option to create outdoor trees.

9/19/09 - We attended a "mini" convention for outdoor yard Christmas decorating enthusiasts. The meeting had about 70 folks from all over the Eastern United States (predominately Florida) and was held in Lawtey at a wire frame manufacturing facility and warehouse. These meetings not only get us in the proper "frame of mind" to begin thinking more seriously about this year's plans, but we also meet some great people and share some fabulous ideas.

8/5/09 - We received our Light-O-Rama controllers today. Now to assemble them. Light-O-Rama sells the controllers in three different stages of assembly...totally assembled, partially assembled (requiring some connecting of wires and assembly of power cord pig tails) and completely unassembled (requiring soldering). Each progressive stage of assembly cost more. We compromise with the partially assembled controller, which is a good balance between cost savings and work/skill required on our ends.

8/1/09 - In 60 days we'll be putting up our All Hallow's Eve decorations...which means now is the time of year when we really turn our attention to our 2009 Advent and Christmas decoration plans. For the first time this year we stood across the street and took a good hard look at the house and yard to try to imagine the changes and plans we want to bring to reality. We have some REALLY big surprises and plans for expansion this year so stay tuned!

7/19/09 - Light-O-Rama has an annual summer sale on their controllers. This year's sale ran from July 1-19 so we placed our order today for two additional 16 channel, 30 amp controllers. Adding 32 channels this year will bring us to a total of 112 channels, each capable of independently controlling a set or string of lights.

6/11/09 - Well, first entry for 2009. We're beginning to think a bit about the 2009 display. I e-mailed Light-O-Rama today to obtain a download of the software for our new laptop we purchased to help us keep up with the demands of the programming. Also asked about any summer sales they may have on control boxes (as they usually do). We plan on adding an additional 32 channels for 2009 (2 new control boxes).

Also updating our Excel spreadsheet of "Christmas decorations" (based on notes made from our after Christmas sales purchases). This spreadsheet helps us track the storage location of items as well as easily track the number of lights we have.
2009

2008
11/26/08 - HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Family (sister, brother-in-law and nieces are coming late tonight so we're celebrating tomorrow. So we had the day (all day) to put up 20 inflatables in the yard. That pretty much took us all day. There on now to enjoy before "lights on" in two days.

11/25/08 - More running of extension cords and hooking the lights up to the Light-O-Rama control boxes. Mostly today was setting up the "mega" tree, a description for any "large" tree in your yard decorations. In our case, we hang strings of lights from a tall palm tree in our yard to form a tree. Our mega tree this year has 16 channels, 8 white and 8 red. Each channel/color turns on four strands of lights, two on each side of one another, 180 degrees apart.

We also took what was left out of storage today...mostly our crèche or manger "blow molds" and the 20+ inflatables we have.

Mom is helping out tonight (and today) by cooking, keeping us free to work "round the clock" (except for breaks of some home cooking) AND she is helping finish up the "ornament garland" project (stringing the last 200 balls on our twine for hanging from the eves of the house.

11/24/08 - Continuing to put up lights, trees, and assorted decorations in the yard. Running extension cords to the control boxes.

11/23/08 - We're getting down to the wire. Two full days this weekend of string up lights, running extensions cords, connecting everything to the control boxes, assembling the North Pole, etc. A LOT of work this weekend. There's still some programming to do, the mega tree to assemble, the ornament garland to finish and hang, the inflatables to take out of storage, check each one that all the lights inside are working and place them in the yard, as well as set up the snow machines and hang the large ornaments from the trees.

We had a few friends over today to help us and thank goodness for that. Wouldn't have gotten near as much done without them. We had a good number of neighbors walk by to see how it was going. Even had neighbors across the street invite a few friends over for drinks in anticipation of us turning the lights on tonight....had to disappoint them and tell them LIGHTS ON next Sunday.

11/20/08 - A full week of assembling the fifteen (15) lit trees we have and place in the yard. All week we've been checking their lights, replacing bulbs and basically trying to get the "full strand" to work.

11/15/08 - The last few days we've been putting out the lights in the trees, shrubs and bushes out in the yard.

11/11/08 - Happy Veterans Day to all military veterans. Thank you for your service to our country and the fight for freedom...it is a "fight" and we recognize there are "costs" to this fight. Thank you from a grateful country.

11/10/08 - Today we delved into the "layout" of the yard for this years decorations. This also helps us assign control units and channels to the appropriate lights based on where in the yard they will be located. A lot of programming every night from now until "Lights On" on Sunday, November 27th.

Received today our shipment of 24 additional (colored) strobe lights. Those are C9 "bulbs" we use to provide a large impact during certain crescendo in the music. They aren't found with the other Christmas lights but must be ordered over the internet.

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