To those who love over-the-top holiday light displays, Chuck Smith is Franklin's own Santa with computer chips, diodes and electric bulbs.

The brains behind PlanetChristmas — an elaborate collection of illuminated elves, light-up evergreens and snowflakes that appear to dance and twinkle — is happy to be back on the job and in The Factory at Franklin for the first time.

After more than 20 years of setting the display up outside, Smith could relax and actually enjoy planning activities in comfort even while it's rainy and cold beyond the mini-mall's doors.

"Actually setting it all up in November isn't so bad," he said of outdoor displays. "But it's worse taking it down in January when it's colder. Sometimes you've even got cables frozen to the ground."

The first string of lights went up in the bushes outside The Factory on Oct. 21. By the first weekend in November, Smith was doing work indoors. And he took off work at his "regular job" for two weeks around Thanksgiving just to make sure everything was done by Black Friday's switch-throwing ceremony.

The Franklin resident said he already knows every nook and cranny of the space. In September, he was photographing the former stove manufacturing facility trying to formulate his Christmas holiday lighting plan.

But the massive area in which to work did present a problem: He had a hard time deciding exactly how everything would work together in a cohesive whole.

"The area is so big, this is the first time I've had to do some things without a definite plan and could not work out ahead of time. But everything in the display will tell a story,"

PlanetChristmas' creator said.

Smith also had to use a "cherry picker" machine to string lights in the rafters of the multistory building and deal with higher climbs than when he was up on his own rooftop. "I'm not used to getting off the concrete. I've become less tolerant of heights as time goes on," he said.

Visitors to this year's PlanetChristmas are treated to three stages — the outdoor show with 15,000 lights and 16 computer-controlled reindeer on the water tower, the main indoor courtyard with a North Pole motif and the hallways where the Christmas-themed figures hold court.

For 20 years, Smith's home in the Cobblestone subdivision was "the" stop to top off any Williamson County holiday lights driving tour.

Smith created a computer program to control more than 500 circuits to synchronize the lights, making them blink and flash in unison. He is the founder of www.planetchristmas.com, a cyber community where light enthusiasts worldwide share technological knowledge.

But as PlanetChristmas' reputation grew, so did traffic through his neighborhood. To be a good neighbor, he decided to move the display out of the residential area.

Last season, he took a trip to Disney World rather than spending the month out on the lawn setting up his 200,000-bulb display. The year before that, PlanetChristmas found a home on the lawn at The People's Church on Murfreesboro Road.

Those who stop by the Smith home this year won't see anything awe-inspiring as far as lighting goes, so it's best to head to The Factory at Franklin, located on the corner of Franklin Road and Liberty Pike.

"I made some oblique reference to it being at The Factory on the Web site. And wouldn't you know, 15 minutes later I'm getting phone calls. People from East Tennessee even set up a time to come over and see it," Smith said. 

Click here for some of the PlanetChristmas press for 2006.