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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:

      Another open house success

      Our first open house was on December 5, 2009. We normally open the doors at 6:30 in the evening. My youngest grandson and I were taking care of some finishing…

      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 “Scuttlebutt” and luckily the government doesn’t mention me, this time.…

      How I became a pro Christmas decorator

      When I sat down to write this column for PlanetChristmas magazine, I was trying to put everything that happened to me over the last four years in perspective. I went…

      Rumor mill

      I have a normal eared brother that lives way down south. He’s a Christmas amateur, meaning he only thinks about it in December. His decorations consist of a predecorated tree…

      10 ways to get into the Christmas business

      This is the time of year when some of us start thinking about how we can make money getting into the Christmas business. It’s got to be easy, right? Christmas…

      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…

      PlanetChristmas video from 2002

      Back in the good-old-days the PlanetChristmas display at the Smith household was quite popular.  The local Fox 17 news outlet from Nashville, Tennessee came out to film the display.  That…

      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…

      Is it time to blink those lights?

      You’ve taken the big step away from static Christmas displays and decided to blink those lights. For starters your electric bill will be cut in half (and probably much more…

      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…

      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…

        The rumor mill

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

        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 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 ruminations

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

        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…

        “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 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…

        Rumor mill

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

        People like to be respected

        The other day I went out to my car and found the glove box open and the owner’s manual lying…

        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…

        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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