Contained in these pages are images, and more than a few words, about a dream, a little boy's childhood dream. I remember well the feelings of Christmas-time from my early boyhood years. The kindness and generosity that seemed to envelope everyone, the opportunity to show one's appreciation of others through giving, and, of course the holiday decorations that seemed to define the spirit of the season and bring out the best in everyone. Remarkably enough, this is a story of a little boy’s dream that unlike many boyhood dreams, adulthood would not take away, but instead offer the opportunity and means to make reality. The little boy in me still hopes that somewhere, somehow, there are those around me that are helped to feel the same way I did back then by the beautiful sight of Christmas lights and related decorations.
When I was a boy, it didn’t seem like there were nearly as many Christmas decorations by nearly as many families/homes as there are now, but, how I loved the Christmas lights, how they captivated me. I remember well a particular home in the small town where I grew up, and how it would decorate lavishly year after year after year. It was the icon of the entire town during the Christmas season. As I recall from childhood years, it had no rival. I’d heard rumors that they had Christmas decorating contests for the town for a while, but eventually abandoned them because this same house would win every year.
Although the house was “all the way across town” (less than two miles, most likely), I can remember visiting there often, with my parents to admire the Christmas lights and other decorations. In those days, it was basically only larger bulbs and if they had such things as ‘blinkers’ I wasn’t aware of them. Although by current standards, this house may not have been what I would now consider extraordinarily well-decorated, it did have more than enough of those high-powered steady-burning lights that I can remember looking at it through an opened car window and could sense the ‘buzz’ that all the electricity required to run those lights would create. It was like going to another planet and experiencing something that didn’t even quite seem real. It was an illusion, but a good one, taking me to another place in my mind and a place that felt very, very good. It was a place of fantasy.
From this, a fascination with Christmas lights and other decorations developed. I dreamed of the day that my decorations would create the illusion and fantasy that I had felt. I believe I was only about 6 years old when I first started begging my dad to put up the Christmas lights. Like I said they were all pretty big bulbs in those days, but even so, we only had two sets of lights of 25 bulbs each. That seems pretty funny to me now as it isn’t all that uncommon to have that many light sets self-destruct in an evening and I’ll toss them and replace them, and think little of it. At first my dad would decorate with those lights, but I didn’t think his heart was ever really in it. As I recall, by about age 9, I figured I would take matters into my own hands and started putting those two sets of lights up myself. I would often move them around, within in a given season, and try different things to see how it worked. And, sometimes it worked (visually), but honestly, often it didn’t….
As time went by, I became aware of many different types of lights. The ‘miniature light’ was introduced (yes, I know I’m dating myself here…..). But, I had no way to earn any significant amount of money to buy them with at first. And, they were, relatively expensive. In terms of Christmas light sets, what would now probably cost less than a dollar, was commonly at least 5 dollars back then – and this despite the fact that that 5 dollars would probably be worth 10 or 15 dollars today.
But, by age 13, I figured out a bit of a solution to this problem, by delivering newspapers. With the money I got from delivering newspapers, I finally had a way to actually buy a few Christmas decorations, but not many, and everything was carefully calculated and measured. I would plan it all out on paper all year long, and measure everything time and time again, so that I could be certain I had every extension cord and every set of lights carefully planned and accounted for so that I could afford it. As you might expect, this was a very slow process, where I would acquire just a few sets of lights each year to add to the project.
To help with this, by age 14, I actually took two paper routes. And, ironically enough, I delivered papers to the house that was the town’s Christmas decorating icon. I don’t remember ever talking with them about it, nor my dream, nor how much I admired them and what they created each season (perhaps I should have – they really did create something of a monster in me, I suppose). No doubt my own Christmas lights were so minor by comparison, that they hadn’t even noticed them. But, I got to watch a little more closely as they would decorate their house for Christmas, as I would deliver the newspaper to them every day and could see each day’s progress.
By mid to later teen years, I had delivered enough newspapers and purchased enough lights that I began to experience unexpected problems. As my dad had taught me, I had always connected the Christmas lights to the porch light switch. One season, and I can’t remember exactly which year, nor exactly how many lights there were, but I turned the lights on and of course watched them for a while (in those days, I think I spent most of the December evenings in the front yard). When the time came to turn the lights off I went to flip the switch, but the switch wouldn’t work. It had become so hot that the switch had melted and welded itself into the on position. I knew I had a problem (and that my dad, who seemed to mostly just tolerate the Christmas lights at this point) would have a fit. So, I immediately bought the parts (a new switch) and quickly replaced it (I’m guessing if/when my dad reads this it will be the first time he’s known this). I also began to figure out how to prevent that from happening in the future, and started to learn how to properly distribute the electrical load to avoid problems (often by trial and error). It wasn’t a good year if I didn’t blow at least a few breakers during the season.
It wasn’t until my 20’s, while still living with my parents, that I began to add decorations besides just lights. I really didn’t have any place to store such things at my parent’s house, so there was only so much I could do. In addition, and once again, such decorations weren’t as readily available back then, and when they were they were very expensive, at least for me, and beyond my reach. So, in the beginning I would design and build them myself. I’ve never been able to build much of anything (and still can’t), but raw passion and determination would eventually take over and I would figure out a way to do it, using the incredibly limited skills that I had.
The first things I built were candy-cane like light polls to create something of a perimeter or fence around the yard. Quite honestly, this idea was stolen directly from the house that I had admired for so many years. They did it differently, but what I designed was something simple enough that I thought I could build it (and I did). I used mostly scrap lumber and paint that my parents had laying around and left over from finishing their basement and house re-painting projects and such, as I still had very little money for the project, and what money I had was spent mostly on light sets and extension cords and such. I did also manage to buy one plastic (blow mold) Santa for $25 on an after Christmas close-out sell at Grand Central. By financial necessity, I’d become quite adept at capitalizing on the after Christmas sells.
After the candy-cane like light polls and the plastic Santa, my next venture was into inflatable reindeer. I could get them for about $8 each, so I figured I could actually get a set (of 9). I wanted to put them on the roof, although I had no idea how. Fortunately, a friend of mine came to rescue, being much more engineering-minded than me and engineered a way to keep them on the roof – well, it worked up to wind speeds of about 40 mph, at least (which unfortunately, wasn’t always quite good enough, and there were a few tense moments, but it worked for the most part).
Although there are earlier photos, I’m not sure where they are. Apparently, I do not have them, and I don’t know where they may have gone. But, at this point, I do start to have photos, so I can let them tell a bit of the story for me. This photo, from December 1988, shows the lights on my parent’s house. The plastic Santa is sitting on top of the chimney – no wait, that was no chimney, it was the swamp cooler. But, well, I worked with what I had. One of the many disadvantages of those inflatable reindeer was that they didn’t light up. So, as you can see in the photo, about all you can actually see of them are the lights I put on them, in something of the illusion of reindeer reins. Fortunately, it looked better in reality than it does in the photo (I think). And, of course you could see the reindeer during the day.
It was pretty obvious at this point that I had set myself up for needing a sleigh. There were no suitable sleighs available at the time, so once again, I figured I had to build one. And, once again, I had to design it in such a way that I, with an extremely limited set of skills, could build it. The initial design idea came from a sleigh used in a mall display. Of course there it was used to hold merchandise for sale, not just for show, so I had to modify it quite a bit. I spent countless hours on that design (on paper) and working it out in my mind. I built the sleigh in 1989 with the help of my good (more engineering-minded) friend and my soon to be wife (she still has the red paint stained jacket to prove it). As shown in the photo, in 1989 I had the sleigh in the front yard, with the inflatable reindeer off the ground, flying up to the (swamp cooler, it was all that was there, like I said….) on the roof. It was a pretty neat effect, although the mechanics and reality of pulling that off (and the effect of wind) kept me from ever doing it again. I also built my first ‘light tree’ including the star for the top mostly from scraps left over from building the sleigh.
My wife and I were married in 1990 and that meant that my Christmas lighting project was going to have to do something it never had before – change houses. I had made it something of a practice of trying to add something new to the Christmas light decorations each year. In 1990, when I was asked what I added, I replied “the house”. It was all I could do to put those lights up on a different house. In fact, were it not for the timely help of my (previously mentioned more engineering-minded) friend, I’m not sure it would have happened.
I might also mention, for perspective, that I can remember thinking and talking about the lights taking about 5,000 watts of electricity to run, at this point. I thought that was "a lot", back then, and perhaps by some measures it was. But, considering that I estimate 2005's decorations at 32,000 watts, it seems just a little bit funny now. At least by this measure the decorations are well over 6 times larger now (15 years later) than they were then (and since I'm really more of a numbers guy than an artist, I also add that's an average increase of a little over 13% per year).
These pictures show a similar angle of the sleigh and reindeer during the night and during the day.
In 1991, I decided to add a Merry Christmas sign to the roof. Once again, I figured I’d just have to build it. It’s made from about 10 2x4’s, a sheet of plywood, and some exterior white paint. This area had much more wind that I was used to before. In fact, one year, I can’t remember which, a neighbor’s tree blew down in the wind, but remarkably the Christmas decorations, including the inflatable reindeer, remained in place. But, due the wind, I and the fact this sign was going to be on the roof, I also got some cables and anchored it down very securely. In hindsight, it was extreme overkill, but at least the sign never blew away. And, I only almost slid off the roof trying to put it up there once (that was the last time I EVER went up on a roof with snow on it, at least unless it was a couple of feet of it, then it can be done).
This photo shows a bit more detail of the sleigh and reindeer and the Merry Christmas sign on the roof.
In a daylight shot, this shows that I also bought the start of a plastic nativity set. Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus was all I figured I could afford, and they didn’t even get a manger, just a couple of cinder blocks that had been left with the house when we bought it. This was also the year our first child was born, and as things went very well, our insurance co-payment was less than I’d feared, so we splurged and also bought a plastic snowman and put it on the side of the house.
1992 brought the re-addition (and improvement) of something I’d done before, but not used since 1989 - a “light tree”, in an idea borrowed from a local non-residential light display. My version was much smaller. As I built it myself, the interesting challenge was to cut the star out of plywood. Fortunately, this problem was solved more with math (trigonometry) than carpentry skills, so I had a fighting chance. By this time, the inflatable reindeer were really starting to drive me crazy. I actually had 13 of them, rather than just 9. And, all season long, I would take the 4 with the worst leaks in the house and find those leaks in the tub and put silicone on them to try to seal them up, only to do the same all over again the next night.
To make matters more interesting, one night when I was doing my usual exchange of inflatable reindeer, I realized that one had been shot with what was apparently a BB-gun (since I found the BB inside the reindeer). I’d experienced quite a bit of vandalism over the years with the Christmas lights, but this particular location was actually pretty good that way, even though it wasn’t generally considered the very best neighborhood. No sooner had I discovered the BB-gun hole than a knock came at the door. It was the police. I’d wondered if I should have reported the incident to them, but hadn’t thought much more about it when there they were. They said they’d caught some teenagers on something of a joy-ride going around the neighborhood shooting things with a BB-gun. They said the teenagers had indicated that they had shot some reindeer, and that they had been driving around the neighborhood looking for reindeer that might be the ones they were referring to. By this time, the officers could no longer keep a straight face as they asked if by chance my reindeer had been shot. Chuckling, I replied that that they had in fact, and that I had just noticed. They indicated they could include the damage in the report and that it may be included in any restitution that the teenagers might be ordered to pay by the court. I indicated that my reindeer had so much silicon on them already that filling up one more small hole was the least of my worries. They wished me a Merry Christmas and went on their way. I was actually glad that they had shot the reindeer and not the front window or something else that would likely have been more costly to repair.
The solution to the inflatable reindeer was, of course, wire reindeer. These had started to become popular around this time (1993), but most of the time the cost was up around $300 each (Back then I never would have imagined a time that you could buy them from Walmart, imported from China for $25 like you can now). There was no way I could afford to buy 9 of them, as much as I wanted to. However, I had noticed ads in the paper for a local company that built them (Metal Creations), and decided to approach them to see if I could negotiate a package deal that I could at all possibly afford. I approached them in July (1993) and managed to buy 10 reindeer (they sold them wholesale in boxes/sets of two, and they didn’t want to sell an odd number at a discount), for $675. I decided I’d try to re-sell one of them (and later did, to my parents, who about this time started decorating themselves, to my surprise, and eventually started doing a pretty nice job of it at that). Of course the $675 was just for the wire and didn’t include the lights to put on them. I was on my own for that, and ended up going on a quest to buy over 100 sets of miniature lights for the job. Because I went with cheaper lights and such, they didn’t look quite as good as some of the more costly versions at the time, but it was quite a stretch (cost-wise) to do as much as I had.
During the summer (of 1993), I also talked with my father-in-law, who, unlike me, seems to be able to build just about anything and everything. I gave him some idea what I’d like to have for a manger. Based on the idea, he took and ran with it, and I was extremely pleased with what he created. In celebration, I also found a plastic shepherd, sheep, and set of wise-men to go with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus to make a more complete (manger) ‘scene’. In the end, this year was a huge addition to the Christmas decorating project. I had never added such substantial pieces in a single year before, nor invested such large amounts of money in the project before (nor been able to). I was pleased and excited. I was also exhausted. I had started working, sometimes non-stop on the Christmas decorating plan in July. This was one of those years that I was so emotionally invested in those (silly?) Christmas decorations that it about killed me to take them back down. But, I think I crossed a threshold this year, one that would alter the magnitude of my Christmas decorating forever. I also learned just how exhausting it can be. By the time the decorations were all done, I can remember going to bed exhausted and with nearly every muscle in my body aching. But, it still seemed worth it. Unlike the little boy, I was beginning to grasp a clearer vision of my desire to share a Christmas message with the world around me. I wanted nothing more than, if at all possible, to share a tiny glimpse of how I felt about Christmas and about the birth of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. While I have no desire to offend, I vowed that I would never offer a message of “Happy Holidays”. My message was clearly and deliberately “Merry Christmas”.
I’m aware that some would see this type of decorating as “too commercial” or a waste of resources that should be used for something else (I can think of plenty of things that lots of people do that I would consider a “waste of resources”). But, having examined this at length in my own mind, I find it entirely appropriate and fitting that the largest celebration of the year celebrates the birth of the Jesus Christ. I can think of nothing in the history of the world more fitting for such a celebration. And, so I celebrate and try to very best of my ability, and perhaps even a bit beyond it, to express in some small way how I feel about the importance of this event, and I fall far short. But, I do try, and I sincerely hope that through my feeble effort, those who see this effort can feel the emotion and intensity that I feel about it. I think more than anything else, at this point I decorate to offer some tiny glimpse of how I feel about the importance of Christ’s birth and importance of acknowledging and celebrating it. I see nothing commercial in my effort and have promised myself that if/when the day comes that I cannot provide this visual representation, such as it is, to all those around me who care to observe it, freely, and with no other obligation nor expectation other than to simply look and enjoy, I will discontinue the effort entirely.
A couple of close-up photos of the ‘manger scene’ and the new wire reindeer.
During the Christmas of 1993, the change was noticeable enough that neighbors began to compare our house with a huge mansion on the other end of town that decorated lavishly. This mansion probably has a 10-acre lot and the Christmas decorations are done by a company created by the homeowner just for the purpose of decorating his home. It’s an undertaking I could never compare to. And, as I’ve never seen Christmas decorations as anything like a competition, I wasn’t very concerned about it either. However, as we would of course drive by this other home and admire the decorations, my wife and neighbors began to taunt me that I didn’t have a 10-acre lot and I had used all of the available space, so I was going to have to “go up” if I wanted to put any more lights on that small house. As my wife has teased me about it ever since, I remember well sitting in the car in our own driveway, just after returning from this other lavishly decorated home, and the idea came to me for what to add the next year. Being unable to really communicate what I had in mind, all I said was “Yup, we’re going up”. It’s remained a joking line in the family ever since.
As you can see from the photos (of Christmas 1994), the idea was for a huge star on top of the roof. I figured I could pull this off with the help of my father-in-law, as there’s no way I could have handled a saw well enough to cut the angles necessary to build it. I designed it, including all of required angles for each board, and my father-in-law cut the lumber (from scraps he already had, remarkably enough). I turned the front room of our house into a construction site as I drilled guide holes and screwed each piece of the star together, and then also drilled the holes to hold the lights in place.. It is a set of 6 stars put together one inside each other. As the photos cannot show, the lights, put through holes in each board, are multi-function/motion lights placed in the stars in opposite directions creating an unpredictable and ever-changing pattern of light. The result got rave reviews from many who saw it. The (largest) star itself is 9 feet in diameter (tip to tip) and was designed to be mounted (and was) to a maximum height of 13 feet above the crest of the roof. Of course wind was a concern, and it was heavily cabled down to the sides of the house.
What I did not know at the time I built, designed, and put the star on the roof, was 1994 was to be the last year these decorations would be on this house. Of course by this point, I had revised the breaker boxes and power arrangement for this, but it was time to change jobs and it was also time to move on and build our own home. We had never intended to live in what was our “first home” forever. There were no Christmas decorations for the Christmas season of 1995, as our home was still under construction and we had no house to put them on. The decorations were in a storage bay and we lived with my wife’s parents pending the completion of our new home. 1995 is the only year in some 30-35 years of my life that I was in the United States (I did spend a couple years out of the country) that I had no Christmas decorations of any kind. Honestly, I had to fight the feeling that it was a year that Christmas never came.
The most obvious change for 1996 was the house, of course. Perhaps not quite as obvious was that because the yard was bigger I also made a bunch of new candy-cane-like polls to go around all of it. Another surprising first was the introduction of local Christmas lighting/decorating contests. The decorations had been featured in the local newspaper before, and included in lists of local ‘places to see’ for Christmas decorations a few times, but the idea of a contest was new. I certainly never intended to be competitive with it, but it was nice to be recognized by the local community in that way, and we got to take a nice trip to a resort/casino in a neighboring state as a result. As another very subtle change I also found a good deal on a larger plastic Santa to drive the sleigh and a plastic Mrs. Santa to accompany the older plastic Santa (on the porch), and also another plastic snowman.
1997 brought the addition of some much larger light trees and since the affordability of wire reindeer had increased dramatically, wire reindeer (including eating does, and such) to accompany them. Like 1996, this year brought another exciting first. We won the Christmas lighting/decorating contest for the whole county. As a result we took a trip to Mazatlan, Mexico a couple of months after Christmas. That was a lot of fun to do. After a few more years, and partly to intentionally disqualify myself from the contest, which I never again entered to begin with, I volunteered to help judge the county Christmas lighting contest and really enjoyed that. As I said, I’m not necessarily that big of a fan of contests, but I still feel very saddened by the ending of that contest in 2003, like something fun and enjoyable had to come to an end. I was hoping and looking forward to participating as a judge again. But, apparently, that has now faded into (a good) memory.
The additions for 1998 were relatively subtle, although there are a few things scattered around. I was kind of planning and saving up for a big project that I’d wanted to do for a while and finally figured that I had a way to do it. I had also just started another new job and had very limited time-off to put the decorations up. It was a challenge to put everything up that I did, and still add just a bit (like the wreath on the front of the garage).
I had long wanted to add a Christmas train to the decorations and had been discussing the idea of building a wire version of one with a custom wire company in a neighboring state. The vision started to get clearer when my Dad designed, in detail, what the train would look like. To have the train custom built like that with lights and everything took around $1,500. It was (and still is) the most costly Christmas decorating addition I’d ever even considered. But, it was really exciting to go through with it and see it actually happen. When I went to pick up the train, it was like… well, like Christmas!
In addition to the train I also added a number of plastic pieces to the nativity set, turning it into more of a true ‘nativity scene’. A few other smaller items were also added and scattered around here and there. In the end, even with the infamous y2k threat/scare/nonsense, 1999 was another year of significant change for the whole decorating effort. I might note, and as you can see in the background, I was also pleased that the immediate neighbors (seen in the background) also decorated with some icicle lights (which I naturally encouraged, and even helped with just a bit…).
Christmas 2000 brought about carolers, wire presents, plastic presents and plastic elves carrying presents, a new wire Merry Christmas sign, a couple of snowflakes, and some penguins.
It also brought about something unanticipated, at least for the photo images of the decorations – a digital camera. I’ve heard some say how inferior digital technology, especially earlier digital technology was to film. Apparently, those who say this aren’t Christmas light photography hobbyists, or else they know something about film cameras that I do not. I was really shocked, in a good way, when I first saw these photos, compared to what I had become used to with film. Like many of the photos on this page, these can be clicked on for larger versions to help show detail (and for the first time, with digital technology, it actually kind of does show that detail).
In preparation for 2001, I talked a coworker and his son, who is an electrician, into helping me with a much needed power upgrade to even make what I had in mind possible. We added a new entire breaker box in the garage to handle the much needed electricity demands and demand for electrical distribution to safely handle the load of all of the lights. During the Christmas season of 2000, my mother had been unexpectedly diagnosed with brain cancer. It turned out to be an extremely aggressive form of cancer that seldom responds to treatment and the prognosis is far from good. But, mom gave it quite a fight and beet the odds for a while with a new, and nearly experimental chemo-therapy. Running on borrowed time, both she and Dad visited and helped me with the decorations for several days this year. With all of the increased infrastructure and help, this year was the largest I had ever created, by some margin and by every reasonable count, at around 37,000 lights and around 30,000 watts total of electricity required to light it. As can be seen in the photo, some of the additions were a couple more light trees and the swag lights on the roof – which really add up, both for number of lights and electricity required.
With the help of the internet, I also finally found a relatively affordable place/way to upgrade the ‘manger scene’ to the life-sized version, rather than the more commonly available one. The tallest wiseman in the set is nearly as tall as I am. With my mom’s passing in 2002, to me these images stand partially as a tribute to the memory of her helping me with the lights in 2001. As recently as last year, I anticipated 2001 would be the largest Christmas light display I would ever create. And, it still may be, at least by some measures. But, I surprised myself by having exceeded it in some ways, at least, eventually, both last year, in 2005 and again this year, in 2006. In any case, I seriously questioned, and still question my ability to to create anything any larger. Among other issues, I'm simply I’m not entirely certain that I physically can. The effort required is very overwhelming. 2006's new record (if that's what it is) took me about 3 weeks straight, practically day and night just to set it up, stake it down, and plug it all in. And, even that was possible only with the help of some rather nice and nicely consistent late fall weather, and a bit of help from a few very kind neighbors.
For 2002, I started to look at excluding those items that had become the biggest maintenance and/or set-up nightmares. That included the light trees and the big star. But, despite that, I did design and have built a 20 foot in diameter wreath for the roof to add back into the other things. While not nearly as large light count-wise, etc., as 2001, and perhaps the first year ever that it wasn’t larger than the previous year, I thought it made for a nice set of decorations that I was pleased with. I also added some wire bells that I was pleased to have been able to find, and made a contact for replacing the light trees I had built with easier to set-up and maintain wire versions.
So, for 2003, that was what was added, was the new wire trees. The same company also built another custom wreath for the roof. This one is only 14 feet in diameter but rises much higher off the roof and uses larger lights.
For 2004 I mostly added this web site, and not much, if anything to the Christmas decorations themselves. I had some possible plans, but I couldn't get anybody to build (weld together) what I had in mind. I'm still hoping for that (any offers?...). Of course that didn't stop me from taking these pictures and including them here.
For 2005 I added an inflatable snow globe. It made me realize that I've tended to be and will probably still tend to be slow and/or reluctant to adopt the newest fads in Christmas decorations. I tend to wait until something specific "strikes me" as something I'd like to include. I'd long had a few concerns about using inflatables, and in the end, though the logistics of it proved challenging in ways I didn't anticipate, it also proved easier in others.
And since that brings us to the current year, I suppose this is the end of the history of my Christmas decorating project. I’ll be amazed if anybody actually makes it through reading all of this, and I’m not sure I expect that anybody will. But, perhaps in the absence of a personal history or something like it, that perhaps I should write, this will have to suffice for that as well. If you did make it through all the way, congratulations, thanks for hanging in there, and I offer my most sincere wish that you may have the Merriest of Christmas seasons possible, even if it isn’t Christmas time when you read it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!