New for 2012:

Our good friend, Emmy Award winner,  

Judy Pancoast recorded us a

personalized version of her song

“The House On Christmas Street”

to use in our display this year.  

Also we’ve added several new tunes and

a string section to our collection of

wireframe characters to play some of

those new tunes to include:  “Dueling

Jingle Bells”….think “Dueling

Banjos”  done to the tune “Jingle

Bells“ for our country music fans. 

For our hard rock fans…..try on a

Black Sabbath sound alike of

“Ironman”  titled

“I AM Santa Claus.”

How many lights do you have?

Well, that changes year to year.

We started out with around 1200

that only ranup the driveway.

Each year we add as many as

we can manage to plan for. 

This season we are well over

32,000.

How much is your electric bill?

With a computer based show you'll

notice that all the lights are not on

at one time.  Well....at least

they're usually not.   This cuts

down the power usage

considerably. It's not as bad

as you might think.  And believe

it or not we actually have people

that voluntarily send in

contributions to help defray costs.

How do you get the lights to

come on with the music?

Well, we have a special connection

with the big guy himself and Santa

shared some of his North Pole

Magic with us.  We built several 

light controllers that plug into a

computer.  The lights can then be

programmed on the computer so

that they flash with the music.

Each song takes between 20 to 30

HOURS to program depending on

the length of the song and its

complexity. 

When the display comes down on

Janurary 1st we begin searching

for and programming the music

for next year and it usually takes

until October to get all the little

details worked out. 

Why do you do this?

We decided to start our display

as a family project when the kids

were 4 and 6 years old. It has

become a hobby and a family

tradition that we plan for the

entire year.  We're a musical family

and since we are no longer able to

play in a band or orchestra this

is our way of performing.  Plus

there is the added benefit of

proclaiming our faith in Jesus. 

We strive for a balance of

secular fun and religious

tradition to offer every one of

our visitors something that

hopefully warms their heart.  

One fond memory of our efforts to

bring some joy to the community

comes from a young girl who could

not have been more than three. 

While sitting in the car watching

the show there was a sequence

featuring the manger scene.

This little girl screamed out the

window of the car for everyone

within earshod to hear....

"Look mommy....it's baby Jesus." 

How special and heart warming is

that?  It pretty much sums up

the question of "WHY" we do it!

Beside all that.....it's FUN and

people really seem to enjoy coming

by for a visit.  Quite a few people

have told us that they now make

it part of their family tradition to

drop by each year to catch the

show. In this way our Christmas

'family' is increased in numbers

each year.

How long does it take to put up

the lights?

The entire process takes about a

week to ten days to get set up and

tested.  There are always 'bugs'

to work out....  But preparation

goes on year round.

How do you get your music on

a radio station?

We built an FM stereo transmitter

that broadcasts the music from the

show to your car.  Simply tune

your car radio to 101.5 FM and you

will be hooked into the show in no

time.  And "Yes" it's perfectly OK

with the FCC...

Do you do the announcements

between songs? 

Oh, Well....we tried that the first

year that we went on the air....

but soon realized that wasn't

going to cut it.  You've got to know

your limitations!  So the voice you

hear is the world famous Demented

Elf.  He's a 'hoot' isn't he?

Whats up with the scrolling sign?

That little unit is called an LED

Triks.  It consists of 1536

individual LEDs that are hooked

through a communication cable

back to the computer.  It scrolls

the name of each song and the

performing artist as well as the

radio frequency. 

From our Santa Central computer

control center we can change the

message that scrolls and on

Christmas Eve we send out

constant updates on Santa's

location as he makes his trip

around the world!