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    We’ve made it too complicated!

    Remember chaser strings from long ago?  Wrap one of those around your Christmas tree and suddenly it had personality.  The string had a controller at the end about the size…

    PlanetChristmas is back in 2023!

    Here’s a short video (just over a minute) that shows the highlights of PlanetChristmas 2023. The last major light display at the PlanetChristmas world headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee was way…

    A Better/Cheaper RGB Pixel Matrix Solution?

    I’ve been thinking about adding some sort of pixel matrix to my Christmas display so I could do more messages, graphics and video.  A P10 RGB panel display or pixel…

    Thinking about RGB pixels?

    Back in the old days you would plug in a string of Christmas lights and they would just turn on.  Easy. Technology started getting involved about a decade ago. Think…

    Make your own wireframe for the yard

    Ready to create your own wireframes to continue the theme you have evolving in your Christmas display?  You can always go to a local welding shop but it gets expensive…

    How to fix a blow mold?

    Does your Christmas blow mold need some tender-loving care?  John Yanik created an excellent video to guide you through the process.  Check it out! Standby while we load this from…

    How do they make Christmas lights?

    So, how does the factory make a string of Christmas Lights?  It really helps to have a specialized machine and a lot of automation.  This YouTube video is a bit…

    Holiday Lights at Cheekwood Trains 2022

    What happens when you mix a giant model trains layout with Christmas lights dancing to the music?  You end up with Holiday Lights down at the TRAINS! display at Cheekwood…

    2022 Top 10 Christmas tunes list

    At PlanetChristmas we get to see a lot of Christmas displays. We also talk to music producers, programmers and radio DJs about what they think will be hot come Christmas…

    Be a good Santa

    I had the pleasure of attending the “Celebrate Santa” convention back in March of this year. There were about 400 portly gentlemen attending to trade secrets on how to be…

    The Forums are back!

    It was 1997 when the Internet was relatively new and the PlanetChristmas.com domain had just been granted. Back then you filled out a paper form, mailed it in and waited…

    TSO keeps going and going and going

    Trans-Siberian Orchestra reveals 2022 holiday tour dates and answers your burning questions by Melissa Ruggieri of USA TODAY Rare is the juggernaut as potent as Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The musical locomotive…

    Really worth reading...

    Some of our favorite articles:

      Sequencing for a living

      It’s finally November. For many lighting enthusiasts we’ve been planning our over-the-top displays for months and are now ready to begin putting up the lights. I know quite a few…

      Full backstage pass

      I wrote an article entitled “A Day in the Life” for the August 2009 issue of PlanetChristmas magazine. I received emails from people who were amazed by the amount of…

      Rethinking decorations

      So you are minding your own business, shopping in a store, any store, when you spot something that kicks your creative juices into high gear. You start visualizing the next…

      My search for the first snowman

      Who made the first snowman? Who first came up with the idea of placing one snowball atop another and sticking a carrot in the top sphere? This was my quest…

      Over The Top!

      PlanetChristmas started it all with the original Worldwide Decorating Contest and never imagined the number of incredible Christmas displays there were out there.  When the 2008 judges saw the first…

      Synchronized lighting means plan, plan, plan.

      In an earlier issue of PlanetChristmas magazine, I talked about the nine steps of getting into synchronized lighting in an animated display. Now I’m going to take a few of…

      More Christmas pain

      Christmas time is joy, giving, and love. Yellow jackets are bold, aggressive, and if provoked, sting repeatedly, painfully and pursue you with the determination of a bulldog. The story you…

      The Rumor Mill

      I dressed up as a miniature Hyatt employee and got in free to that re-PLUS event in Louisville on August 1st in Louisville. It wasn’t until the end of the…

      More Christmas village tips

      Christmas villages began during the 1700’s with the Moravians building a Putz. What’s a Putz? It’s a display featuring the nativity and tells the story though different scenes about Mary…

      The Rumor Mill

      LEDs Light Emitting Diodes. Let me get this straight. These things are suppose to save the world. They last forever, use next to no electricity and are revolutionizing the Christmas…

      Then there are the rumors...

        Rumor mill rumors

        I’m a Christmas dude. Always considered Halloween people to be way-too-weird for this normal-thinking elf. Zombie movies, haunted houses and…

        So many LED based Christmas lights

        I’m not worried. Well, maybe a little. It’s been the oddest thing. Until this year we’ve been quite self-sufficient at…

        “Yur lites R stupid”

        If you are reading this magazine then I think it’s safe to assume that you’re “one of those people” that…

        The Rumor Mill

        LEDs Light Emitting Diodes. Let me get this straight. These things are suppose to save the world. They last forever,…

        The Grinch hates flying

        The Grinch made it to re-PLUS in Louisville on August 1. It wasn’t the first time I’ve gone to one…

        The rumor mill grinds on

        When Santa isn’t looking we sneak off to the elf lounge and surf the Internet so we can keep up…

        More from the rumor mill

        Microsoft has determined the attention span of a human is eight seconds. Mythbusters figured out a goldfish can stay focused…

        Marking your territory

        There’s a morgue under the house according to my wife. It’s where I store most of the Christmas decorations because…

        Not the rumor mill again?

        All this time us elves thought we were watching Mother Nature’s Northern Lights up in the sky but we’re no…

        The rumor mill

        I dragged my wife to the last performance of the Trans Siberian Orchestra 2009 concert tour. Jiminy Christmas! I’ve never…

        The Rumor Mill

        We get satellite TV in the workshop up here at the North Pole. Ernie (the super-geeky elf: think thick glasses,…

        The Rumor Mill keeps grinding it out

        Santa gave us Labor Day off with one little caveat. We had to promise to return the next day ready…

        Where are the forums?

        The PlanetChristmas Forums are on an extended sabbatical. 

        If you want to engage with the decorating community, head on over to our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/planetchristmas

        If you really want to see the PlanetChristmas Forums come back on-line, send an email to Chuck (chuck at planetchristmas.com)

        No matter what, remember our three rules.  We are:

        1. Positive
        2. Family Friendly
        3. Christmas-centric
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