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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:

      The rumor mill

      I dragged my wife to the last performance of the Trans Siberian Orchestra 2009 concert tour. Jiminy Christmas! I’ve never seen so many stage lights, lasers, light curtains and flame…

      Top 10 ideas

      Whether you’re a newbie or an experienced decorator, it’s a lot of work to get geared up to start the display setup process. The purpose of this article is to…

      Performance Art

      I have been fairly busy since writing the last article for PlanetChristmas. Soon after the first article I was involved with the installation of the multi media show that runs…

      SuperStar Sequencer

      For Christmas of 2008 I spent untold hours building my first SuperStar display using 288 segments of green and white rope lights. Controlled by 48 multiplexed channels it was a…

      JUMP: Jack Up Mega Pole

      For six years I had pondered an easy and safe way to lift a heavy duty, stand alone telescoping pole. Jackie (my wife) and I had demonstrated telescoping poles along…

      Christmas decorating trends

      I honestly thought when volunteering for this assignment that finding out what the big Christmas trends for 2010 were going to be would be easy since it was already March…

      Blowmolds

      Over the years many of us have seen this question asked over and over in the PlanetChristmas blow mold forum: “How many blow molds do you have?” It’s a funny…

      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…

      The Grinch again

      Mrs. Grinch conned me into watching “Invasion of the Christmas Lights” on some cable channel last weekend. What is wrong with you people? So much stress and drama! I get…

      Squeezing more from your light controllers

      Do you wish your light controllers had more channels? Me too. If you have recently joined the ranks of the “Computerized Holiday Lighting Crowd” you’ve probably figured out it takes…

      Then there are the rumors...

        The rumor mill ends another year

        What’s the big decorating trend this year? I really hope it’s not those dress manikins shaped like Christmas trees. Creepy.…

        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…

        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…

        The Grinch…

        When it comes to “Do-it-Yourself” wizardry, I don’t think you will find a more creative bunch of people than those…

        Rumor mill ruminations

        What an interesting summer with the war of the Christmas shows, each on the same weekend of July in Conroe,…

        Rumor mill rumblings

        The workshop has been buzzing about all that recent presidential excitement in the USA. We’ve never had an election here…

        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…

        Rumor mill rumors

        Friday night we cranked up the satellite dish and caught the opening episode for Gold Rush on the Discovery channel.…

        “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…

        Here we go with the rumor mill

        This can’t be good. There’s been another data-dump onto the world from WikiLeaks. I just did a quick search for…

        The Rumor Mill (again)

        Labor Day. It’s typically when the politicians kick into high gear. How can you tell when one isn’t telling the…

        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…

        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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