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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:

      LEDs facts and fiction

      When Chuck Smith asked me to put together a column for PlanetChristmas magazine that was a little more on the technical side of things I was nervous at first. Would…

      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…

      Halloween versus Christmas

      In the past, it seemed that no two holidays could be at more opposite ends of the spectrum than Christmas and Halloween. Today, however, Halloween is viewed more as theatrics…

      Backstage Pass

      It’s time to tell a story about life on the road as viewed by a professional in the world of event production. That would be me. “Woke up, got out…

      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 of these but it was the first time I was…

      Synchronized Lighting Heads and Skeletons

      I feel it’s time to talk about Halloween in PlanetChristmas magazine. More and more people are decorating for the last day of October and many of the techniques are also…

      Light-O-Rama

      In 1975 Dan Baldwin was a newly minted computer science wizard and had just married his longtime sweetheart, Mary. That first Christmas together they bought a three foot tree upon…

      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…

      Indoor decorating

      Let’s pick up from last month. You’ve got your theme and have decided where and what to do with your tree. What’s next? Gather your Christmas goodies, be it Santa,…

      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 Pole Galleria to grab a couple of slices of supreme…

      Then there are the rumors...

        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…

        “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 has found more… rumors.

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

        Rumor mill ruminations

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

        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…

        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…

        So many LED based Christmas lights

        I’m not worried. Well, maybe a little. It’s been the oddest thing. Until this year we’ve been quite self-sufficient at…

        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

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

        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 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…

        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…

        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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