When Chuck Smith gives groups of Cub Scouts tours of his Christmas light show, he usually starts around 5 p.m., just 12 minutes before the lights are programmed to come on.
 

As he explains the setup, the children’s eyes start to glaze with boredom — 524 circuits, 6.4 miles of wire, 540 computer controlled switches, 143,268 lights, 352 strobe lights — and then the lights start to come to life, and the kids go bananas and start running around.

“This is all kind of homemade. It just sort of evolved over the years,” said Smith, who has been working on his light display for 14 years. “The computer controls all of this, but it takes a lot of electricity to make it work.”

Smith is Santa’s most prolific and technologically proficient elf. His annual project, which started with simple computer controlled tree lights, has become the No. 1 Christmas attraction in Williamson County, and his Web Site, www.planetchristmas.com, has spread the technology around the globe.

The display includes 524 circuits, 6.4 miles of wire, 540 computer controlled switches, 352 strobe lights and 143,268 lights. (Brain G. Miller)

Smith’s light display covers every millimeter of his home and property, and there is not one individual light that blinks unless Smith’s monstrous computer program tells it to.

“It’s even overwhelming to me sometimes,” said Smith, who put in approximately 300 man-hours from Halloween to Thanksgiving to get it up and running.

And, of course, it grows every year. Smith’s computer program runs a fully automated 17-minute show that begins with a routine circuit check and ends with 352 strobe lights blinking all at once — and if you want to stay in your warm car to watch the show, you can tune to Smith’s radio station, 98.7 FM.

The switches inside the Planet Christmas nerve center are labeled things like “Stars,” “Santa’s helicopter,” and “Roof Reindeer A,” and sure enough, reindeer, snowmen, Santa’s chopper, giant trees, the new gingerbread house, a reindeer drinking pond and Smith’s entire house are controlled individually. Clark Griswold would be beside himself.

Neither Smith nor Santa Claus, who are practically related, have any interest in turning a profit, but both of them make frequent appearances at the light show.

Not everyone recognizes Smith, who can mingle with the admirers outside his own home and listen in on the comments, but Santa is so popular that he has his own early warning lights built into the show and a special “Santa this Way” path.

One year, before the Santa pathway was built, a child was so excited to see Santa that he dashed head-long into the light display and cartwheeled over the fence, and Santa had to rescue him before he lit up like Rudolph’s nose.

And is Smith ever going to take a Christmas off?

“It’s become a family tradition for a lot of people,” Smith said. He explained it’s hard to consider not doing the show when people come up and say things like: “My parents are coming all the way from North Dakota to see your lights this year.”

One day, however, Smith will have to pass the tradition on to someone else, which is partly what www.planetchristmas.com is all about. He said there is already a student at Centennial High School who is starting to learn the technology.

When asked what the whole project has cost him, Smith responds that it is not in the spirit of Christmas to share such a number, but it’s all worth it.

When a child — whose parents maybe can’t afford a whole lot for Christmas — sits on Santa’s lap and tells him that the show is one of his Christmas highlights, Santa sometimes gets a tear in his eye.

By JASON RILEY, the Bowling Green, Kentucky   Daily News Online  December 10, 1999

Caroline Slemp, 6, and Andrew Slemp, 11, of Franklin, Tenn., gaze at the light display at Planet Christmas in Franklin, which is about 20 miles south of Nashville, Tenn. (Photo by Clinton Lewis)

FRANKLIN, Tenn. – Directions to Franklin resident Chuck Smith’s home are easy, he insists.

“Take Interstate 65 south, get off at Exit 65 in Franklin and follow the glow on the horizon,” he said.

Thousands of people follow these directions each year to get a glimpse of what Smith – the Clark Griswald of Franklin – calls Planet Christmas.

“Last week we had five limousines and two tour buses here at the same time,” neighbor Marsha Richards said, with a mixture of awe and exasperation. “Hundreds of cars come every night, more on the weekends. He doesn’t make any money doing this; he does it out of the goodness of his heart.”

For the past 14 years, Smith has built it and people have come.

Smith’s yard and home are filled with 143,268 miniature lights, more than 350 strobe lights, 6.4 miles of wire to connect it all, 540 computer-controled circuits, dozens of reindeer, Santas, gingerbread houses, penguins, elves, sleighs ... and one unquenchable appetite for more of everything.

“I’ve just about run out of places to put lights,” he said. “It won’t be much longer ’til I have to get a bigger home.”

But he can’t stop – not now.

“It has become a tradition for a lot of people,” said Smith, who is executive vice president of a computer software corporation in his spare time. “People come from neighboring states to see this. I had a guy come last weekend who drove up from Iowa with his wife. That’s an 18-hour drive!

“I had one person come to me and say his mother’s dying wish was to see the lights before she died. Sure enough, she saw the lights and a week later she died. That really touched my heart.”

Every 15 minutes, Smith’s home becomes a winter wonderland light show.

He uses a computer with a 200-MHz Pentium processor to make the lights blink in different patterns – often to the beat of Christmas music that is piped outside and played around the clock – until, just for a moment, all 143,268 lights beam in unison.

“It’s amazing,” Maria Burton of Franklin said. “We’ve been here three years in a row and every year it gets bigger. It puts everybody else’s lights to shame, but I would hate to see his electric bill.”

Because the lights are sequenced and rarely on at the same time, the bill isn’t that high, Smith said.

“Not as bad as people think,” he said. “It ends up being about $75 or $80 extra a month.”

It’s more the time than the cost that would shock people, Smith said.

“It’s a year-round hobby for me, he said.

This year, Smith started putting lights up outside his home on Halloween. He took off his paying job for nearly three weeks in November and worked from sunrise to well after dark on his hobby.

By Thanksgiving, after more than 300 man hours, what Smith calls his “Christmas light obsession” was ready to blaze. It will take him another six days to bring it all down and a week or so to store the equipment.

Then, of course, there’s his Web page – www.PlanetChristmas.com – to update. Smith even has his own chat room in which people from all over the globe suggest ideas for Christmas Planet and garner tips on how to do it themselves.

“People from around the world are doing this now,” he said. “I find it utterly amazing.”

All of it stems from one spinning Christmas tree Smith put up in his yard 15 years ago. A car stopped and its occupants stayed to watch for two minutes.

Smith was hooked.

Now the lines to Smith’s home can stretch for miles as Christmas nears. He doesn’t charge people money and while some offer him donations, he refuses.

“It’s all in the spirit of Christmas,” he said.

If that wasn’t enough, every night at 7:30, Smith dons full Santa garb, hands out candy and asks each child – often more than 100 – what he would like for Christmas.

“There’s not a better feeling in the world than going out there and playing Santa for those kids,” he said. “They scream and ‘ooh’ and ‘ah,’ and it’s all worth it.

“My wife (Marla) and I heard something the other night, looked outside, and there was a man playing a harmonica and people singing Christmas carols with him. That’s what it’s all about. It’s an event for a lot of people.”

original article can be found at:  www.bgdailynews.com