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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:

      Pixel ribbons

      We were sitting around the conference table when Chuck (as in The Mr. Smith) said we’re building pixel trees for the next edition of the magazine. What’s a pixel tree?…

      Off season in the Christmas business

      It’s that time of the year again when the earth is shifting on its axis, the days in the northern hemisphere are getting longer and the Christmas lighting off-season is…

      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…

      LED Products for the entertainment market

      LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology in the professional entertainment market has been on a fast track in the entertainment industry for the last six years after originally being introduced at…

      Gone with the wind

      The question comes up time and time again, “How do I keep my blow molds from tipping over?” Securing a blow mold to keep it from falling down, tilting, or…

      Channel explosion in sequencing

      Every year is the same. You’ve picked out all the new pieces for your display, performed the power calculations, assembled all the new elements into a great design, know exactly…

      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 30-45 seconds. Finally it’s been proven once and for all…

      LEDs are better?

      One of my favorite aspects of our annual Christmas display is going outside when the crowds start to gather because I really enjoy catching the expressions on spectator’s faces. Most…

      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…

      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…

      Then there are the rumors...

        The Rumor Mill

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

        The rumor mill

        Ahhhhh. The sound of wedding bells were recently heard in the Christmas decorating world. Our very own Melissa at Christmas…

        Rumor mill

        I have a normal eared brother that lives way down south. He’s a Christmas amateur, meaning he only thinks about…

        The Rumor Mill has found more… rumors.

        Santa gave all the elves the afternoon off in early November so I wandered down to the well heated North…

        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 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 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 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…

        Rumor mill ruminations

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

        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 (again)

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

        Rumor mill rumors

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

        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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