Comments on: Too many Christmas lights?

Too many Christmas lights?

Lynsey — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 16:43:44 -0800

Is there such a thing as too many Christmas lights? I love seeing lavish displays of lights at Christmas time. Some folks like a few old-fashioned Christmas lights and some like to deck the halls in a blaze of glory (this one boasts 700,000 lights). And how much does it cost to run a fabulous display?

By: FormlessOne

FormlessOne — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 16:52:28 -0800

It's a simple rule of thumb - if you have to add any electrical equipment other than external outlets (i.e., transfer or junction boxes, an additional meter, a generator, etc.) to support your home Christmas light display, you've gone too far.

By: Eekacat

Eekacat — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 16:55:08 -0800

BAH HUMBUG!!!! (freaking waste of electricity)

By: _sirmissalot_

_sirmissalot_ — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:10:17 -0800

one word: hampden . . . live from baltimore, "the greatest city in america."

By: mbd1mbd1

mbd1mbd1 — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:39:11 -0800

Ask the Osborne family - Jennings and Mitzi and their lovely daughter, Breezy.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:59:13 -0800

mbd1mbd1, that site is the gaggingest, even without spoon!

By: mbd1mbd1

mbd1mbd1 — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:01:33 -0800

Yep. Complete with family photo albums. I'm not sure which family is more polarizing in Arkansas - the Osbornes or the Clintons.

By: Dick Paris

Dick Paris — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 18:20:17 -0800

I'm not sure, but things are definitely looking up. ^_^

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 19:02:25 -0800

Thanks sirmissalot, this is truely Baltimore at Christmas time.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:33:56 -0800

My hometown is known as the "Christmas Capital of Canada." Probably a self-declared title, but the lights are nice. (And since the sun sets around 4:30 PM in December, there's plenty of darkness to enjoy them in...)

By: tomplus2

tomplus2 — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 21:01:27 -0800

I saw a statistic the other day: 70% US households will have Christmas lights on display. Seemed high to me. That's a lot of lights.

By: HTuttle

HTuttle — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 21:40:24 -0800

If you don't cover your house with Christmas lights, then satan has won.

By: sageleaf

sageleaf — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 04:35:29 -0800

Just take 'em down by Valentine's day, please.

By: benjh

benjh — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 04:55:40 -0800

Aren't we at war? With countries that produce oil? Aren't these lights burning electricity made possible by oil? So if you have Christmas lights, you are supporting terrorism.

By: Blue Stone

Blue Stone — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 05:49:16 -0800

We are at war to get the oil, to supply the electricity, to power the Christmas lights. We cannot allow our Christmas lighting to be be held hostage by evil muslim turrsts, who want to stamp out Christmas. This is what our brave soldiers are ~~throwing away~~ laying down their lives for. I for one, salute their ~~pointless~~ sacrifice. Iraq Motives v3.04.002 beta

By: MsVader

MsVader — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 06:24:21 -0800

Every year, we go through the same tedious and aggravating ritual... 1 - find the box with the lights 2 - untangle the lights 3 - try to figure out which bulb is the one causing half (or all) of the string to not light up 4 - send someone out to the store to get extra bulbs 5 - discover that new bulbs can't make the string work 6 - send someone out to the store to get a new set of lights 7 - lose all holiday spirit Now, I can't even imagine what these people go through every year. They must be insane.

By: Lynsey

Lynsey — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 09:54:09 -0800

What boggled my mind was reading through the PlanetChristmas site and noting that some geeks,like this woman, seem to turn their m4d sk1llz to computerizing their displays, resulting in this. She boasts, "We live in Adelaide, South Australia and have been doing a Christmas display for the past two years. Lots of things we have imported from the Christmas Factory in Tennessee. We have also made a lot of wire figurines ourselves this year. This years display is totally run using the computer and DasherCR, the light display is synchronized to music and runs for 24 minutes before restarting."

By: piper28

piper28 — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 12:49:06 -0800

I believe in adding a little every year. I've seen some huge displays that looked good, and some that looked tacky, so there's definitely more than quantity involved in whether it works or not. I do wish I felt a little more competant about adding electric outlets to make it easier, but I've never been a big fan of wiring electric outlets. I've also found that I need a taller ladder, because I can't reach much of my house. (At this point I've only been in a house I've owned for 2 christmases, so the extent of my lighting display is basically icicle lights along the front of the house). And as for when lights can be run, I lean towards between thanksgiving and new years. I won't turn them on after new years, but they lights themselves probably won't come down until I get a day where I won't freeze while taking them down.

By: piper28

piper28 — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 12:50:07 -0800

Oh, and my wife wants some of those damn deer, which so far I've successfully avoided due to the cost of the things (damn they're expensive).

By: SisterHavana

SisterHavana — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:20:36 -0800

You should see this one house in my neighborhood. Lights (loads of them) strung in no particular order, lots of little light up Merry Christmas things on the house, plastic lawn decorations on every inch of lawn and ON THE ROOF, and they were still adding more stuff the other day! It makes every other house in the neighborhood look tasteful in comparison. At least none of the displays in my neighborhood have Christmas songs playing for hours. I would go nuts! As for me, I am Jewish, so I don't have to worry about putting up lights. : )

By: roboto

roboto — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:28:51 -0800

Seeing all the fantastic lights and decorations really made the magic for me as a kid and now that I'm older, seeing Christmas lights magically makes the kid in me. When it isn't an advert. Dasher software has a customer page with pics and vids, like this snowball fight[mpg] This enthusiast's page covers the control tech and he has some pics and vids of his display. Topgun Santa[mpg] is pretty impressive, too bad he won't get to put up a display this year.

By: roboto

roboto — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 16:39:59 -0800

I want to be invited to the Osborne's! I want barbeque for Christmas! That was some family webpage! If you haven't any set up, you can play with this guy's.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 21:55:42 -0800

A little ironic how our electrical company spends a ton of money promoting energy efficiency, only to have it all go up in smoke during Christmas... (well, actually, we're entirely hydroelectricity in this province, so there's not a whole lot of smoke involved...)

By: bargle

bargle — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 12:57:12 -0800

It was a pretty big news event in Arkansas (but what isn't, in a state with only 2 million people) when the Osborne's had to move their lights out of state. The street they live on is not very good for handling huge amounts of traffic and it is in the middle of a mostly residential part of Little Rock. I never saw the lights, but I see the family all the time at Arkansas Razorback football games in Little Rock. They have this huge barbeque at each game and you can get a tray of it for five bucks. When I say a tray, I mean a whole chicken, ribs, sausages, a turkey leg, a bbq sandwich that I can never eat more than half of and some other junk. It's insane. You have to stand in line for like two+ hours to get the food, but I always do, since it is almost all meat and I can take most of it home in a big cooler and eat on it for a week. I bought a bunch of lights last year and this year I bought more, but as of yet they are not up. And as late as it is, they probably will not be put up. I've been sick so much the last month that I haven't felt like messing with them. I wish I had put them up back in October or something, at least most of them. But I didn't. Oh well. I have outlets all around the house, mostly for this purpose. I need to read up on how people handle their huge displays though, I find that getting everything to outlets and handling extension cords is the biggest problem.