I am just curious how many of us did lights before animation

[radioguy1007]

Been doing lights for way too long.  Started with a little static display, then built a mega tree in the early 80's that had a home built custom 8050 processor that just sequenced through patterns on an eight bit port driving 8 triacs.  Added 4 wireframe trees a few years later that had red and green minis - did color changes in patterns.  Never saw much attention being paid to the display until the Carson Williams video hit - I did not know why cars were now stopping and watching the light flashing - they had been doing the same thing for 10 years now.  One of my friends linked me to the Carson video - the next year started in with 64 channels of LOR.  The mega tree and wireframes are still in my display today - the mega tree became a spiral tree in 2013 and this year I'm replacing the minis with LED's. 

 

"Relaxin' und watchin' das blinkinlights!"

[Kendall Walker]

I did 11 years of static lights before making the jump 

[bschwotzer]

I did static lights for 8 years. The last two years were with Mr. Christmas. The second year I burnt up two Mr Christmas within one season. I was looking for way to repair the Mr Christmas when I found LOR. I have never looked back. I have been phasing out all of my old incan  minis. I keep my blow molds to keep a part of my old display. I have replaced most of the lights in the blow mold to leds. I have not replaced all of my older incan lights but each year the number of incan lights go down.

[PaulXmas]

Started with lights on the house.

Next year was the window.

Then those plastic balls on the evergreen.

Then had a yard full of blow ups.

X10 to turn lights off and on next year added a colour or 2.

Had some cheap controller for about 5 minutes (guess I exceeded the max power).

[jstorms]

1999 All incandescent.

2005 Lights. Very humble, but the Christmas Cactus is there.

[1983ss454]

1999 All incandescent.

2005 Lights. Very humble, but the Christmas Cactus is there.

So John you were a mass***e too? Lol

[B.Y.R.G.]

Started out 40 years ago as a little kid helping my Grandpa put up the old school C-9 size glass bulbs.  Those were a P.I.T.A!!!  "Whoops!!  Gramps I think I stepped on one."  or just moving the strings around too hard and slap a few glass bulbs together was also a big NO NO!!!  He always had spares and never got mad when it happened....he was awesome. 

 

Then as a teenager I would decorate our house since my Dad wasn't to into it but my Mom always encouraged me.  Everywhere I've lived and even in the Navy while living in the barracks I would decorate with lights during Christmas....Thank you Gramps!