Behind The Scenes

When & How

It all started a four years ago when local businessman James Varner worked with local businesses and the Chamber of Commerce to create several animated displays around Andrews.

During Christmas 2006, I became interested in during a display at our home. First I downloaded the software from Light-O-Rama. Then I watched 100's of videos, both on their site, and from links at PlanetChristmas. I adopted several ideas for my show, including a mega-tree and roof snowflakes (from Jeff Trykoski's Site in Frisco).

Then came the important part- the 'after Christmas' sales on lights at Walmart, Westlake Hardware, Home Depot, and Lowes. I didn't know how many lights I would eventually use, but at 75% off, it's the best time to buy.

We have over 240,000 lights, of  which around half was used in our initial show for 2007.

Next came the hardware. Fortunately, Light-O-Rama has a great sale in July, so we were able to acquire 23 16-channel controllers, for a total of 368 channels of animation. Over the next few months we found the FM transmitter on Ebay, and setup the dedicated computer that runs the show.

In September 2007, we poured concrete for the 50' Mega-Tree and set the guy line anchors.

In October 2007, we began preparing the lights for the Mega-Tree. Each string is actually 2 strings (one clear, one multi) wrapped around 12 gauge THHN wire, then tie-wrapped. This process alone took over 20 hours.

Once we had most of the main parts of the show planned, then the tedious job of sequencing the lights to music began. This process takes 10-20 hours per minute of music to complete.

After Christmas was over, we decided to add Red and Green strings to the Mega-Tree and House, so selective shopping followed.

For the 2008 Show, we've moved the Nativity Star up 10', to make the tree 60' tall. A 100' "Beam of Light" goes from the star to the Nativity Scene. We've also added eight 1200watt fog machines, moving yoke stage lighting, and lasers. This is primarily used during the Elvis Intro from his Hawaii concert.

Pictures of Mega-Tree    Pictures of 11' Mini-Trees

(More pictures on picture page)