2009

LEDs vs, incandescents
This was supposed to be easy. Determine once and for all if it’s time for all of us to switch to LED (Light Emitting Diode) Christmas lights. Almost everyone has an opinion and are more than willing to share unless it’s going to be mentioned in a magazine article, then they clam up tight. Most are quite comfortable with the tried-and-true incandescent lights and have heard enough war stories about LEDs to not make the jump. Enough! My job is to get to the bottom of the LED versus Incandescent Christmas light story and tell you what to do. Ready?…
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So many LED based Christmas lights
I’m not worried. Well, maybe a little. It’s been the oddest thing. Until this year we’ve been quite self-sufficient at the North Pole. When we needed raw material to build another line of toys we just went to the shelf and there was everything we could possibly need. I’ll admit I was on vacation in January but way too many elves stuck here in the workshop told me about all the corporate jets flying in for behind-closed-doors meetings with Santa. I just assumed the big man in red was working on some sort of grand surprise party for all us…
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The Grinch hates flying
The Grinch made it to re-PLUS in Louisville on August 1. It wasn’t the first time I’ve gone to one of these but it was the first time I was going to one that was being held in a city where there was something for the rest of the family to do while I was hanging out with a bunch of demented decorators. When I mentioned the possibility of attending to my wife in January she immediately replied “Sure! That sounds like it will be fun.” The kids, however, had a few questions they wanted answered before committing to the…
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Indoor decorating
Let’s pick up from last month. You’ve got your theme and have decided where and what to do with your tree. What’s next? Gather your Christmas goodies, be it Santa, snowman, angels, country, modern or whatever and start decorating. You don’t have to have tons of everything to make your home look great during the holidays. Do your tree, hang some pine bough around the doors, add lights, some bows, floral picks, ornaments, whatever suits you. It’s your indoor display so make sure you do something you like. Remember the rule of three. Always decorate with odd numbers of items,…
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Another Over The Top display!
The judges agonized over all the entries for the PlanetChristmas Inflatables Category of the 2008 Worldwide decorating contest and unanimously agreed the Liquori house in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York was the hands down winner for not only inflatables but also blowmolds. Let’s just say this one is definitely over the top! Their commitment to the community was inspiring, but it’s obvious what they really need is a bigger yard. Michael and Rosina Liquori have 25,000 lights, 500 blowmolds, giant toy soldiers, nutcrackers and 40 inflatables. Candy canes and snowflakes are all over the display as well as the…
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Living Christmas Tree
Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose father worked on a farm with hardly a tree in sight and about twelve miles from the middle of nowhere. Her family was poor and lived in the farmer’s basement. One Christmas they could not afford a tree, so the father made a board to hold one string of Christmas lights and displayed it on the farmer’s mantle. The little girl and her brother were allowed to go upstairs to the farmer’s living room to sit on the couch and look at the lights as long as they were very,…
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So you think you’re a star?
Have you got the music in you? More specifically, have you got the CHRISTMAS music in you? If you’ve ever dreamed of producing your own CD of Christmas music, wait no longer! Life is too short to sit around and dream. With record companies losing profits every day, now is the time to jump in with both feet and begin your career as an independent recording artist. Especially since there are now so many ways to have your music heard even without the backing of a big record company. As they say at the Nashville Songwriters Association, “It all begins…
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Think like your cellphone
My first year to install an extreme Christmas light display at my home was in 2005. I had to buy all the products, learn a new software program, stumble through installation procedures, install an electrical sub-panel in my garage and make about a hundred trips to Home Depot for electrical supplies. The display was fairly simple and included 45,000 lights, 80 channels of computer control and very few props or tricks. I programmed about eight unedited songs, one after the next much like a collection of songs on any given album. I thought it was really cool and I had…
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Sequencing for a living
In the September issue of PlanetChristmas magazine, you heard from industry experts giving great advice on “Going Pro” with a Christmas lighting business. I’ve been fortunate to meet with many of these people and have learned a great deal from them. Following in those footsteps, I would like to share my industry experiences with you. While there are many aspects of a lighting business, I’d like to focus on sequencing a display that is not your own. Of the many services available the most popular is custom programming of light displays. In my many years of working with synchronized displays,…
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Re-PLUS in Louisville
It started out a simple enough idea back in late May. Our normal bi-annual gathering of serious Christmas decorators was not meant to be in this challenging economy. Instead, the rule book was being thrown out the window and PlanetChristmas was going to sponsor a one day event in downtown Louisville. It was being called the 2009 retry of PlanetChristmas Lights Up Symposium (re-PLUS), targeted at the locals and focused on people getting together to share Christmas decorating experiences. If 50 people showed up, it was going to be deemed a success. The event was to be free but options…
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