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PlanetChristmas April 2008 NewsletterIt's About Time!
Welcome to your April 2008 edition of the PlanetChristmas newsletter! It is published regularly and covers relative topics for the Christmas decorating enthusiast.
Here's what you can read about in this April 2008 newsletter: __________
A "Green" Christmas Display?
Got my electric bill early this month and there was a little paragraph warning the price of electricity would be going up soon. Looked around my house and it's hard to find an incandescent bulb because I've already replaced them with the little swirly compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). My heating and air conditioning system has a programmable thermostat to alter the temperature when the house isn't being used. Almost all the appliances in the house have the government Energy Star logo. I'm running out of ways to painlessly conserve electricity.
Then I got to thinking about the electricity consumption of large Christmas displays... I've been known to have a few in my lifetime and they can be real energy hogs. Computerizing the lights saves a huge amount of electricity (25-80%) but you still catch flack from the hardcore environmentalists for wasting energy.
What about a solar powered display? Now that would be making an environmental statement! The first thing I did was go to the PlanetChristmas "Figuring Power" page at http://www.planetchristmas.com/FigurePower.htm. Didn't take long to decide I could have a great display with 15,000 lights using just LEDs and keep my total current draw to 15 amps or less.
Solar power makes a lot of sense when the sun is shining, but Christmas displays look best when it's dark. You need solar cells, power regulators, batteries and deep pockets to pay for everything. Much to my surprise, there's a very complicated equation required that factors in which way the solar cells are facing, average number of sunlight hours per day in your region, how much current you require, the type of typical power loads anticipated, the efficiency of the power converters, types of batteries you are using, how many batteries you have and how the batteries will be charged. Jeeeessseeee. This can be really confusing stuff and it reminded me of the very early days of personal computers when there were no package deals.
After much head scratching and finally talking to some solar power vendors, I figured I could get a very reliable system installed for a tad less than $20,000 and have the peace of mind knowing my display was using a totally renewable resource that was pollution free. When I told my wife she gave me her all-too-familiar "dolt" look. Spending $20,000 to save the extra $30 I would spend with the electric company to power this display didn't make any sense at all. Using the solar power to feed the house the rest of the year did sound like an easier way to justify something like this ... so let's just say we're thinking about it.
Obviously generating your own electricity to just power a Christmas display does not make any financial sense for 99% of us. It does make a lot of sense to transition to LED lights as soon as practical because they use around 80% less power, last almost forever and have such pure colors. We make lifelong memories for so many people with our Christmas displays and there's no reason we can't be eco-friendly at the same time.
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Rudolph's Rumor Run
Lots of rumors swirling around out there. I usually ignore them, but some just need to be shared.
Got any juicy bits of gossip you want to share with the PlanetChristmas community? Send a tip to csmith@PlanetChristmas.com __________
Checked the Forums Lately? It's Really Changed!
The PlanetChristmas community has grown too fast and our host provider could not keep up. We recently moved to a new provider that supplies us with a forums infrastructure that can scale as we grow plus provide many new features. All the information from our old forums has been moved to the new place and your account name and password remain the same. The look and feel of our new home might be a little different but we are much better positioned for the future.
If you haven't found the updated PlanetChristmas forums yet, go to http://www.planetchristmas.com/talk.htm. We've recently added more forums and made it a little easier to get around. Never forget PlanetChristmas believes strongly in protecting your privacy so personal information about your account is never sold or shared with anyone.
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Tell the World What's Happening in Your Area!
With our new PlanetChristmas forums, there's now a section where you can go down to the state level and post information about what's going on. Use this to let your community know about events and also remember to place important dates on our public calendar. Want a shortcut to the PlanetChristmas forums? http://forums.planetchristmas.com
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PLUS2009
Behind the scenes planning continues for our bi-annual gathering, an event we call PlanetChristmas Lights Up Symposium or PLUS. There's not a whole lot of new information to distribute just yet other than I'm still wading through the very lengthy list of volunteers for the Steering Committee and listening to sales pitches of professional companies that want to run our show.
Want an easy way to keep up with PLUS information? Go to the new website at www.PlusForUs.com. It's the first place new PLUS information is shared with others. __________
PlanetChristmas Tip of the MonthLots of merchants are planning sales to correspond to the economic stimulus checks being distributed by the government starting in May. Do your patriotic duty and stimulate the PlanetChristmas vendors. They will very much appreciate the business and give you a good deal so your 2008 Christmas display will make memories for so many people.
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Went
to the local bookstore and picked up a great magazine called "Home Power"
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We
now have sub-forums and blogging capability in our
PlanetChristmas
community. Behind the scenes, there are all kinds of features to
better moderate what's going on and keep out the bad guys set on violating our
three fundamental rules of positive, family friendly and Christmas centric.
