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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 is working overtime

      The big man in red gave us a night off. We aimed the satellite dish toward Europe and the TV picked up the grand concert in front of Buckingham Palace…

      More views from the UK

      One of my other hobbies is oil painting. I create landscapes and abstracts in oils purely for my own pleasure. I was talking with a friend at an art exhibition…

      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…

      Top 10 music list for this upcoming holiday season

      At PlanetChristmas we get to see a lot of Christmas light displays and in our Spring 2015 issue we figured out the most popular tunes for 2014. We checked with…

      Indoor displays

      Well it’s time to really get serious about your displays, both inside and out. Now, why in the world should we think about the inside, especially with all the time…

      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…

      Recording your own music

      It started with Ryan Lissner of Ryan’s Christmas Lights (www.RyansChristmasLights.com) in Salisbury East, Adelaide, South Australia looking for some fresh music for his down-under Christmas display. Off-the-shelf music wasn’t an…

      Modern marvels: vampire plugs

      How many 100’ orange, pink and green extension cords are used in your Christmas display? How many times have you run a giant cord to power that one string of…

      How about some plastic?

      Known by various names including Light-ups, Lawn Art, kitsch, illuminated figures, or simply blow molds (two words, not one), they are a type of Christmas decoration that become an obsession…

      Too many 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…

      Then there are the rumors...

        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 rumor mill never stops

        Been hearing some weird rumors from participants in the 2014 version of ABC’s Great Christmas Light Fight. Decorating started sometime…

        Rumor mill rumors

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

        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…

        The rumor mill again

        Government overthrows, earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns. What in the world is going on with everyone down south? Sounds like the…

        The Rumor Mill

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

        Rumor mill rumblings

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

        “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 keeps grinding it out

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

        The Grinch again

        Mrs. Grinch conned me into watching “Invasion of the Christmas Lights” on some cable channel last weekend. What is wrong…

        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 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.…

        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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