Christmas in Gloucester

Even though Christmas is our favorite holiday we have always channeled our energy into decorating inside the house.  While surfing the web a couple of years ago I stumbled upon the Christmas web ring and soon found Planet Christmas.  A couple  more hours of browsing and I was hooked!  It didn't take long for my wife, Keri, to become as enthusiastic as I am about the idea of a "planned" outdoor display and here we are.

 After a couple of false starts we did pretty well with our 2001 and 2002 displays.  If only I could take the whole month of November off maybe things would go even better!

We decided to mix a combination of lights and dioramas for our display.  We've made a pair (so far) of 2D displays for the yard.  We ordered a full-color Santa's Workshop scene complete with Santa and Mrs. Claus, some elves, a reindeer and, of course, the workshop.  We also picked out a family of carolers for a different part of the yard.  These are from  Creative Woodcrafts Plans  and are printed on heavy "billboard" paper.  They have to be mounted to plywood backing for display.

Everybody needs lights to draw attention and delight the youngsters; and even the not so young.  Lighting continues to be a real learning experience for us.  After exchanging e-mail with Drew Hickman for about a week, we took the plunge and ordered  Dasher,  his lighting control program. Since those early years, Drew has moved on (or up depending on your point of view) and is now working with Animated Lighting.  We wish him all the best!

If you're new to this whole Christmas lighting adventure finding good information will be most helpful!  We'll try to provide some of that here.  One of the best place on the internet to find out more is at  Planet Christmas.   Chuck Smith, the webmaster at Planet Christmas, has put together one great site!