It's About Time! 

Welcome to your October 2007 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 October 2007 newsletter:

• Rolling out the 2007 display

• PlanetChristmas Interesting Product

• PlanetChristmas Vendors.  Behind the Scenes.

• Tips of the Month

• PlanetChristmas Shameless Promotion

• Rudolph's Rumor Run

• Your PlanetChristmas Forums Signature

• PlanetChristmas Radio, a new sound!

• Newsletter Suggestions

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Time to start rolling out your 2007 display! 

What a wonderful time of year.  The stores are putting the Christmas decorations on the shelves and we can get a peek at what they will be really pushing. 

It looks like a simple string of 100 mini-lights will be around $2.00 (USD).  If you really think about Christmas lights, they are nothing but a bunch of copper wire with a few bulbs attached.  Even with the price of copper constantly climbing, mini-light prices are roughly the same as 2006.  Many stores are using this low price to get you through their doors so you'll be tempted to buy the expensive stuff.  Show restraint!

LED based Christmas strings are getting brighter and cheaper but you still pay a premium to "be green" and save a lot of power.  I did see at Wal-Mart the price difference on a 25 light string of C7's, incandescents vs. LEDs, was only $1.00.  A big step in the right direction.

If you are faced with the problem of not having enough power to light everything you want, switching to LEDs might be the way to go since they use only about 20% of the power of classic Christmas lights.  To put it in perspective, you can buy a lot of LED strings when compared to having a licensed electrician upgrade your electrical service.

If you need to buy a lot of lights this year, do it now.  The selection is excellent and you can get plenty of what you need.  With the merchants pushing Christmas sooner this year (my mall Santa is arriving November 8th), don't take chances and wait for a sale or what you want will be gone.

A few simple suggestions before you start hanging those lights:

• Draw a picture of where you're going to put everything.  A little time invested in planning the display while sitting at the kitchen table can prevent headaches later.  You can still tweak your design when outside in the heat of battle but all the big decisions have been made.

• Look at the calendar now.  Thanksgiving is earlier than normal this year (were the stores behind this, somehow???) and since you have already made a basic plan at the kitchen table, you can figure what small projects need to be done and by when.  Factor in now it IS going to rain so have some days planned in advance for inside activity.

• Test the Christmas lights now.  It's a lot easier to fix a bad string when standing on the ground compared to swinging from a ladder.

• Label everything!  Carry a roll of masking tape and a Sharpie with you at all times.  At the end of every wire, flag it with a piece of tape and mark what it is.  This will save you an incredible amount of time when connecting everything together or troubleshooting a problem.  At the end of the season, the masking tape easily tears off.

• And finally:  don't turn on the display for the public until you are ready!  People will see you working and beg to get a sneak peek.  Don't cave to the pressure.  You're creating something that will make lifelong memories in your community so make sure you're satisfied before you tell the world!

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PlanetChristmas Interesting Products

Looking for an easy to deploy FM radio station for this year?  Check out a plug-and-play one at http://www.wholehousefmtransmitter.com/ It has a range of about 150 feet and is perfect to send your music to the cars driving in front of the house.

If you're thinking about trying to computerize the Christmas lights this year, but want to use just a very tiny amount of money and lights, General Electric has come out with the gizmo called "Lights and Sounds of Christmas" that flashes six channels of Christmas lights to music being played through a built-in speaker.  Pretty slick and has a list price of $129.  It's not expandable and the music is MIDI based, but it's a way to be different from your neighbors.  Get more details at Christmas Light Show, one of our PlanetChristmas vendors with a weblink of  http://www.christmaslightshow.com/xcart/product.php?productid=168&cat=21&bestseller

Christmas Done Bright has rolled out a "Rocket Santa" wireframe for 2007.  Very original!  Check it out at http://www.christmasdonebright.com/lighted-displays/New-for-2007/ROCKET-SANTA

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PlanetChristmas Shameless Promotion

The official 2007 PlanetChristmas shirts have arrived as well as the yard signs.  See all the details at http://www.planetchristmas.com/Merchandise.htm.  Money collected from these sales goes toward PlanetChristmas and PLUS.

PlanetChristmas Vendors.  Behind the Scenes.

I'm still traveling around visiting PlanetChristmas vendors... though they are getting incredibly busy as the Christmas season kicks into high gear.  Everyone tells me they have to work seven days a week from October 1st through December 15th to try and keep up with demand.  I'm so glad they are working those incredibly long hours to make Christmas great for everyone else!

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PlanetChristmas Tips of the Month  

Got a bunch of wireframes, blowmolds or plywood cutouts you want to stand-up in your yard.  The easiest thing is to use a piece of rebar from the concrete section in your local home center.  I have various sizes from 2-6' in length and have spray painted them black so they don't rust.  Pound one or two of these in the ground and anchor the wireframe to it using the green twist ties from your garden.  Works great.  When the season is over, wiggle the rebar rod while it's still in the ground and pull straight up.  Now you've even aerated your yard!

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Rudolph's Rumor Run

Got any juicy bits of gossip you want to share with the PlanetChristmas community?  Send a tip to csmith@PlanetChristmas.com

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Tips on your "Signature" in the PlanetChristmas Forums

Many of us have become very creative with our unique signature automatically added to the end of each post we make in the PlanetChristmas Forums (My Account/Edit Profile/Signature).  You can have pictures, links, colored text and just all kinds of cool attention grabbers... but let's be careful.  As we enter the busy Christmas season, the bigger/flashier your signature, the more irritating it becomes to others.  Let's keep it simple and refrain from blatant advertising.  My PlanetChristmas Forums signature is below as an example. 

Chuck Smith at http://www.PlanetChristmas.com
Don't forget our three PlanetChristmas rules: [color=red][b]Positive, family friendly and Christmas centric[/b][/color]

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Newsletter Suggestion? 

Have a suggestion for a main topic or want to write an article for a future PlanetChristmas newsletter?  Send me an email: csmith@planetchristmas.com  If you know someone that really should subscribe to your newsletter, send them to http://planetchristmas.com/lists/?p=subscribe

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Next time: look forward to more Christmas decorating tips. 

Chuck Smith of PlanetChristmas