When to start putting up lights

[Plumber Plays with Lights]

This is my first year. I was wondering when do the seasoned guys start hanging lights. I say in mid Oct. My wife says after the first of Nov. I want start early and enjoy my show. My wife and I are programing together and have about 10 songs. How long is to long for a show.

[godman]

I'm going to start on my Halloween lights the first week of October, Ill start with the Christmas lights on November 1st

[Denny]

Depends on how many lights and how much area you are doing.  I will be starting in two to three weeks, depending on the temperature.

[Reefrus]

Halloween 1st week October, tear them down 1st week November then start on Christmas during 1st week of November to have them ready to light by the 1st week of December. Not as young as I used to be so it takes longer. 

[k6ccc]

I will do some prep work in October, and plan on the first lights up last weekend of October or November 1st.

Granted, a lot of my lighting is used year round for landscaping. I only have a pixel tree, 6 arches, and some GE CE bulbs to put up.

[Mega Arch]

I always start the day after Halloween. The main thing is, except for testing, the show & the lights must stay dark until Thanksgiving.

[Santas Helper]

As others mentioned....

Halloween comes first. Not as big a display but still have to wait to put up Christmas.

Halloween - Set-up day before halloween, tear down day after.

Christmas - Start setting up November 1st and just about every day up thru Thanksgiving eve.

Light em up Thanksgiving night.

[Santas Helper]

If your doing a Halloween display, most of the time that is a factor as to when Christmas set-up gets started.

If I didn't have a Halloween display, I would probably start mid October.

Sometimes, the weather can mess plans up and delay things so more time is always better if you can get it.

[75redman]

I do a small Halloween show so that goes up two weeks before.  The last week of October I start putting Christmas lights on the roof.  Those lights are out of sight of the Halloween lights.

Last year I stayed up and had all my Halloween decorations down by midnight, Halloween night.    Started putting Christmas stuff up the next day up until Thanksgiving.  Lights are on Thanksgiving night,

[Al Saunders]

I don't have a huge display so I take 1 1/2 weeks off from work early to mid November to get the bulk of things set up. I also try and do things in stages. I will work several weekends prior to my time off to get the lights on the house and in the trees/bushes. Then when I have off I get things set up on the lawn. As others have mentioned it's better to start early because you never know what may delay you.

 

Also as for length, it really depends on your situation. I will tell you most likely with this being your first show you can probably run it 20-30 minutes long and run through most if not all your songs. Some of the more well known shows get so much trafic that they can only have 3-4 songs before having to repeat to try and get people to move along. As you get a following of viewers and sequence more and more songs you'll probably want to have different songs on differeny evenings. This way you get to show all your songs and gets people to return different evenings to see/hear other songs. Somehow make it known to the public in either print publication or have the Demented Elf (Kevin) do a voiceover for you to run every show mentioning to come back to see your other show and songs. You can have one for weekday and one for weekend evenings or however you want to change it up.

 

Good luck and welcome to the addiction!

 

Al

Edited August 29, 2014 by Al Saunders

[Vince4xmas]

I start the day after Halloween. However, this year am adding many more props and lights. Will start middle of October and set lights on house/garage/roof/poles/windows first as not to clutter up yard with props and distract from the Halloween holiday. Depends on weather. Pre-test ALL your lights prior to final location. But NEVER done earlier enough. Plan is to fire up show on 11/25.

[Orville]

Halloween I start running the hardest part of putting and securing the lights in Mid to Late August as I usually {not always} run my Halloween show the entire month of October.

 

Christmas I start in November, just as soon as the last strand of Halloween lights have been removed, the Christmas lights start going up, this could be as early as November 2, but usually starts around November 5-7 for my Christmas Display.  And I usually start my Christmas Display operating on Thanksgiving night through January 1.

[Plumber Plays with Lights]

Thanks to everyone. It is nice to know there are so many of y'all willing to help. I guess I will listen to y'all and my wife and wait for Nov.1 for Christmas and start mid Oct. for Halloween.

Thanks to everyone. It is nice to know there are so many of y'all willing to help. I guess I will listen to y'all and my wife and wait for Nov.1 for Christmas and start mid Oct. for Halloween.

[dgrant]

Like everyone else, Halloween comes down, then the next day, I start putting up Christmas. First light up is Thanksgiving night, 6Pm precisly. It takes me a week to put mine up and connect. Then I start testing each circuit individually to insure I did in fact connect everything correctly...lol, which hasn't happened yet. Seems I've always had a few slight errors. Once its all connected, I'm reviewing the show editor, making final sequence changes, fixing this or that and then will call for the grandkids to come up and get their own special show, just for them. I'll select a few songs that they like, so they can dance in the driveway and run around all excited.

[arw01]

Nice thing about pixels, Christmas lights are Halloween lights too. The house outline and props go up middle of October this year, and will remain until January's warm day's above freezing.

[Victor Degroot]

I started Light O Rama last year and put up my decorations a few days before thanksgiving, I only have 10,000 lights and that's barley anything compared to most other Light O Rama enthusiasts . I spend usually one entire day (5AM to 9PM) setting up lights on one day then I work with my extension cords. in total it only takes me two days.

[TitusCarnathan]

The commercial display I work on I start this week, My personal display I start beginning of October.

[Mega Arch]

We've discussed when to start hanging the lights, but being that it's now Sept 1, I'm getting very anxious to get started..

So to feed the craving just a little, I just went to H.D. to buy some more necessary Christmas display supplies:

 

4ft pieces of rebar

flat black spray paint

6ft cable padlocks

 

You know, the basics for decorating for Christmas.

[Max-Paul]

Someone might already have suggested this, in that case I second or what ever the count is. I put lights on my ridge line of my roof. So I want to be up there only when the shingles are soft so that I dont crack them when they are cold. In St. Louis area, that means I am going to put up the ridge line lights around mid October. But wait to start doing the rest over the 3 weeks before Thanksgiving. Light on Thanksgiving night.

[lightzilla]

I will probably start October first with my Christmas display. Up here it is starting to cool off now & it can snow just about anytime. I need to hope that when the lights go up that it is at least 38 degrees so that the wire does not freeze. Once the wires freeze & it warms a bit then the lights sag and that sucks. don't worry about decorating for Halloween.

 

I rarely ever have to Dream Of A White Christmas, heck even Halloween is White at times. Nothing like children dressed in parkas & mitts & boots on Halloween.