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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:

      That house on Christmas Street tour continues

      Many of you PlanetChristmas folks know the story of how my little song, “The House on Christmas Street,” was discovered by a decorator online in 2006 and quickly caught on.…

      Streamlining your display setup and teardown

      Time is precious and it becomes more so as the pre-holiday decorating season gets underway. This is my ninth season for an over-the-top display and fourth year of using a…

      Professional home display

      If you have the time to read this article then you either need more Christmas decorations to put out or you are a really organized enthusiast. Either way I am…

      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 with everything happening south of us. Santa can’t come in…

      Indoor decorating with a flair

      DIY Room Transformations We get tons of questions from our customers when they are preparing to order. From how many lights to put on their Christmas tree to which ornament…

      Music Review

      If you hear some new holiday tunes blasting from Santa’s sleigh as he hits your rooftop this Christmas Eve, you have someone to thank. Christmas with Mrs. Claus is a…

      PlanetChristmas featured on Yahoo

      Did you know Yahoo used to have a video production group that created content for a channel called “Second Chance”?  Somehow they found a reluctant Chuck Smith of PlanetChristmas to…

      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…

      95 foor Christmas tree in shopping mall

      In last month’s PlanetChristmas magazine, I shared some tips on how to get started with a large scale Christmas display at your home. It’s time to follow up with examples…

      Show testing from an iPad

      So, you want to test your lights, and the more you have the more you need to test as you get ready for launch night. Like most however, I started…

      Then there are the rumors...

        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…

        “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 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 Grinch again

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

        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…

        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…

        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 rumors

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

        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…

        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…

        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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