Papa6058 Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 I put up icicles, bushes and outlined the years with a blowup Santa, a deer and snowman. Who else was into lights before the got caught up in this level? Papa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Arch Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 About 30 years for me. Well, 30 years on my own. Learned it from my dad and helped him for years prior to moving out. Sure seems like I helped him more than my kids help me. Humm. Well dad is 86 this year. I still drove over and did roofline and bushes at his house this last year - static only though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Constantino Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Been doing this for many years. I think 25 years. Started in the early 90's, putting lights on my parents house. Then making my own SSR controllers and programming my show in 'Basic". Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plumber Plays with Lights Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I started with two deer and a store bought tree with the roof line done a little later. I hang lights for my mother in law. I did a few years with Mr Christmas. I was inspired by another light show and had to do my own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Simmons Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I've been doing lights since I was a kid, back when there was a choice only between C9 and C7. I remember when mini lights first came out and how common it was to see bare wire in the ones from China. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryl Lambert Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I started with 4 - 25 count strings 18 years ago. Static for the first 5 years, then bought a 4 channel chaser, set with dip switches. Then found LOR 8 years ago & I can't stop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I did a lot of lights some years and just a few on some years. Kind of depends on my status and living arrangement at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawes Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 My dad & I made our own icicle lights from regular strings of incan minis, long before they became available in stores. He saw a house with them somewhere in the Almaden Valley and stopped to look at how they were done. We spent hours using left over twist ties & weaving lights through the cord to form the icicles. Mine have long since burned/rusted out, his are more protected from the elements and he still hangs them every year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1983ss454 Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Well I'm going to be 33 this year so 32 years, when I was 1 my dad started building animated plywood cutouts and we did it every year up until last year, now this past year I did my house just in lights with LOR. Felt strange not having the animated props. For example this was the last year before I started with LOR The skating snoopy is from 1983, the snoopy Red Baron plane on the house is 1984 and the merry go round is 1985. I still have them and hope to use them again some day. This was from my dads final year before moving to my house Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buckeyelights Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Started on my own when I was around 11-12 years old, after my parents split up. Prior to that I helped my Dad. Lots of wood cut-outs, lights, and oh I loved the individual twinkling lights. Won my first light display as a teen; donated the winnings to Father Flanagan's boys' Town. 48 years later I'm still passionate about our display. It's been a fun ride. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralph D Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Hey Everyone, Well for me, I have been married 22 years since march 5th and I picked up were my mom and Dad left off. Now as a lot of you know my dad passed away this past May after a very long and hard battle with his illness. My mom and dad are the ones who instilled in me all the great things about the holidays. My mom and dad continue to light their house even though all their children had grown up and moved away. Even without my father for the first time in over 58 years, my mom lit her house up this past season my sisters and I had no idea she was even thinking about it, my crazy mother got some help from other people living in her retirement community. apparently she kept this top-secret, so me and my sisters didn't find out. My mother at 77 years young climbed the ladder and put all the lights and figurines on her roof. so Lighting my house wasn't even a question my first year in my own place it was just the right thing to do for me. My parents place (where I grew up) in Fairfield New Jersey was 3 times the size of my house and land. my families home was just wonderful, we had over 2 acres of land and right smack in the center of the land was this beautiful blue spruce Christmas tree, crazy how you don't remember things from yesterday but the vivid details of the cherished things you loved growing up you remember and see in your mind like it happened moments ago. I Ralph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimswinder Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 (edited) My first "Mega Tree"...around 1964...so more than 50 years... Edited March 21, 2015 by jimswinder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 Jim, I liked the comment at the very end of the video. So you've been practicing falling trees for a half century.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimswinder Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 So you've been practicing falling trees for a half century.... I like to say I have been PERFECTING the art of falling trees... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Arch Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 My first "Mega Tree"...around 1964...so more than 50 years... Love it Jim. And glad it was the tree & not you that fell. Stay off the top rung..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Posted March 21, 2015 Share Posted March 21, 2015 I was putting lights on the house as a teenager. When I got my own home, I put lights out from year 1. Started using LOR in 2005. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little_b Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 My dad did quite a bit growing up so I learned from him. Got married 11 years ago and moved into our house right away and the first Christmas put up Icicles, C9s, Deer, and my candy cane cutouts I still use today. It gets bigger every year. I've done LOR for 2 Christmas's now, but the one before animation had 50,000+ lights. We used to have to budget all year for that electric bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sirrob28 Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Like many of us it stared back when I was 12 or 13 hanging some lights around mom and dads trying not to push those glass fuses to much in the breaker box in the basement. When we got married 25 yrs ago we moved into a Cal-De-Sac and the first yr we did lights around the bushes a few blow molds like the giant candles and the lights were the old C-9 bulbs the would explode if you dropped them and you couldn't hook up to many because they would trip the new push-o-matic breaker box in the basement. We were the first to decorate that yr but then we noticed our neighbors started to do some lights here and there. Within 5 yrs it became an all out war! We couldn't run a toaster, use a vacuum and god forbid you use a hair dyer or have too many lights on in the house at the same time,lol. We had cords running out of windows,doors where ever we could trying to spread the electric so it wasn't all on one breaker. With all of us going nuts, trying to out do each other,setting up light displays at midnight to try to get the edge, our electric company sent us "Thank you for doing Business with us" card,lol. So after a good 5 yrs of just being stupid crazy we had managed to become pretty popular with the community and started to actually work together. We figured a way to run power out to the Cal-De-Sac which has 5 trees which each neighbor bought lights for and that's when the Colony Lane Circle of Lights was born. With the addition of LEDS we could finally have toast and the girls could dry their hair before their dates,lol and most importantly the wife could vacuum when she wanted to.(having a Husky you need to vacuum 25 times a day) Then came Mr Christmas, we had set it up in the circle and you could here Christmas music with your windows down and watch the lights dance to music. It was the greatest thing since sliced bread,lol. On every weekend Santa, Mrs Claus,Elmo, Mickey and Minnie would all be out their collecting food for the local food bank. Then came Light O Rama. Fast Forward to 2014,12 ccr tree, 8 LOR boxes and a million extension cords the craziest light displays(with no fuse issues..bonus)our own radio station and everything runs of a laptop.....no way!. Looking back it sure seemed easier back then just a few lights on the bushes, maybe some lights around the windows and a few blow molds on the porch,put up and take down in less the 30 minutes but I am sure we had our issues that seemed just as troublesome as the ones we have today. Many times I have thought about how easy it would be to go back to the old way(every year the thought gets stronger,lol) but until I can no longer do it, I don't think I could. The joy of the community and the smiles and Christmas cheer that we bring is the best reward one could ask for. I know the day will come when the lights will be off, but until then I can't wait till Christmas time again! (well sorta) lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmmienLightFan Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 Most people did. Many had a static display, then to Mr. Christmas/Gemmy then to LOR, and many went straight from static to LOR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfuller8400 Posted March 22, 2015 Share Posted March 22, 2015 I too started when I was a young child. One of my favorite Christmas memories growing up is untangling the rat's nest of lights for our indoor tree (I was just excited that it was finally time to put up the tree!). From there I started putting out static lights on my parent's house, and then my own house. Next I found the Mr. Christmas unit and when my display grew to use more power than Mr. Christmas could handle, I built a high-power relay system and used the Mr. Christmas to control the relays (which really worked pretty well). Last year was my first year with LOR and I really jumped in with both feet. But I really learned a lot about what works and what still needs improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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