Some landlords frowned upon Christmas lights, especially if electric was included in the rent
Despite this I still decorated, using window candles & a few strings of lights
I purchased my 1st house in 1997
It needed a lot of work, so other needs had to wait until I had a dry roof over my head. With only 1/10 of an acre, & only 10' to the street - I was limited on what I could display When a local store had a $1 sale on strings of C-9's, I bought 2 dozen sets (or more). Every year after that my house was outlined in C-9's. I lined the house, fence, & the shed out back. Finally I even climbed the large Maple tree out back & decorated with blue C-9s. I also climbed a large 100'+ Oak tree on the side of my property & put a Nativity star about 50' up. That star could be seen from a great distance
In 2002 I was married, little did my wife know the repressed decorator she had married
In 2003 we found a new house & started to move in. This was delayed due to several snowstorms every weekend until mid-December
I was lucky to even find & unpack the window candles. Painting & unpacking from the move took a priority
In addition to that I installed & setup a 240g Saltwater aquarium setup - another hobby of mine
In 2004 I ripped the roof off the back 1/2 of the house to build a dormer, Master bedroom & bath
This took most of the summer & fall & 2 weeks vacation. At the end of July I was roughed in & ready to roof
I installed 4 skylights & had the roof on by the end of September
I also enclosed our front porch during this time
2005
2005 was the 1st year that I had what I consider to be a decent display
We bought our 1st 2 Gemmy Inflatables - The North Pole Express and a 12.5' snowman that my wife thought was too big
I thought it was too small (but did not say so). We had a wire frame deer family & display that looked very nice.
Additional decorating was curtailed when I had to spend 2 weeks planting over 5,000 fall bulbs. After Christmas I went a little nuts at Lowe's clearance sale.
2006
In the summer of 2006 my son was born, a few days later I broke a rib. I spent the rest of the summer taking it easy & healing.
By September I was restless & eager to do something. My Halloween display was unreal for 2006.
No sooner was Halloween over then I was planning my Christmas display. I started to unpack the clearance "loot" from the prior years purchase.
I found things I did not even remember buying. On Craigslist I found 44 Union and Empire blow molds for sale for $75.
Madness ensued as I scanned E-Bay for auctions to complete the Nativity set.
I bought additional blow molds (plastic lawn decorations) to bring the total from 3 for 2005 to over 100 for 2006.
I installed CFL lights to reduce the electric usage by 800 watts. I started decorating & kept adding to my display in anticipation of the night I light up - Dec 1st
Warm weather fueled my ambition & I made a C-9 Christmas tree supported by pulleys from our Oak tree
This tree alone was over 2700 watts, I used 2 dedicated 20a circuits for the side yard to spread the load out
Santa & his 8 reindeer went on the roof, as did rope light. As more packages arrived I would unpack & put them out on display
My wife would keep asking about the packages, "Is this it?"...I would reply...Uh..I think so....
I was very happy with the way the 2006 display turned out, but planned a LOT of changes for 2007
I "only" had approx 15,000 lights, small compared to what some people setup
2007
As I have increased my lighting I have run additional circuits to handle the load
With over 100a of lights for 2006 I realized I needed to do something to handle the power usage
In 2006 I had used a power meter to test each circuit to make sure I did not exceed (or come close) to the breaker and wiring capacity.
Creating a spreadsheet in Excel to track the decorations made me realize that I would exceed 180a for 2007.
I decided I would need to stop using the strings of C-9 lights - only 900 lights but they use 6600w - over 1/3rd of the juice for my display.
Shortly after this I re-discovered PlanetChristmas.com, a site for Christmas decoration enthusiasts.
Here I found many resources, including information on how to animate my display to cut electric usage by up to 75% or MORE!!
I was back in business!! I made multiple trips to area stores buying lights & decorations at 75-90% off
In one store I borrowed a large cart to haul my loot to the register
I had to guard the cart as many people thought I was an employee & were trying to take stuff from my stack
I bought over 2000' of rope light, my overall light count will increase from 15,000 to over 80,000 (possible) for 2007.
I have purchased a radio transmitter & will be broadcasting music as part of the display
I am also purchasing controllers to animate the lights, since the lights will no longer be on 100% I expect my electric bill to go down
This will depend upon how many lights I animate.
I was unable to complete all of my plans for the display in 2007
Once again work on the house took priority. I added a 15' x 17' Sunroom on the back of the house with an 8' wrap-around deck
I replaced the power hungry C-9 Mega Tree (2700 watts) with a Green LED tree that only used 84 watts!!
The display was much larger then 2006, but I am looking forward to more changes for 2008
2008: No Animation or Music :(
In October 2008 I started building my 24x36' garage & great room
So once again my LOR animation & music will need to wait
2007 I used mostly LED lights (only 3,000), for 2008 I was hoping to have all 22,000+ LED's up, did not happen
Very small setup for 2008 compared to 2006 & 2007 -snow storms & I was sick for about 4 weeks
2009: No Animation, Music broadcast on "ELF Radio" 101.1
Delays on Construction, still working on getting it fully sealed in
The back of the house is finally being resided, I will be starting on the front soon
