// Williams Christmas Lights
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Last Two Nights

January 4th, 2013

It seems like it hasn’t been that long ago that I was putting the display up in the new yard, running new outlets, making new cabling, and adapting the sequencing to make it all work.  The time has quickly slipped by, and we are getting ready to shut the lights down until this fall.

If you haven’t made it by the display and would like to, it will run from 5:30 to 10:40 tonight and again tomorrow night, and that will be it.  Most of my neighbors have already taken down their lights, so I am sure they are wondering how long I will be keeping this up 🙂

I will be taking videos over the next couple nights, and hopefully I can get some good ones for those of you who are not in the area.

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Visitor Photos

December 27th, 2012

We had a visitor send us a few time-elapsed photos that he took of the display a couple nights ago.  The long exposure shots definitely give a neat appearance to the lights:

DSC_0716

DSC_0720

DSC_0714

Thanks for sending those, CB.  It was nice to meet you.  If anyone else has taken photos that they would like to share, contact me via the Contact Us page, and I will get them on here.

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6000 Views

December 26th, 2012

Gosh, that was quick.  We have gained another 1000 views, and crossed over 6000 tonight.  Awesome!

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Twelfth Night

December 26th, 2012

There are many fun facts and traditions that are intertwined with the Christmas season.  One of these facts is that the 12 Days of Christmas actually are counted after Christmas day, and end on the eve of the Epiphany.  Twelfth Night is the designation of the end of these 12 days, and traditionally signals the end of the season’s festivities.

Though I may not observe these particular traditions in any fashion, the light show this year will conclude on Twelfth Night, Jan 5th.  This leaves you 11 more nights to come by and see the show.  If you are planning to come by, please think ahead and bring a donation to help the Kansas City Rescue Mission continue it’s outreach ministries to some who are less fortunate than we are this Christmas.  Cash is accepted, as are any of the items on KCRM’s immediate needs page:  Needs    We have collected nearly $300 in cash donations thus far, as well as a couple bags of items from the list.  Thank you to all who have donated up to this point, and if any of the rest of you would like to contribute, it would be great to bump that total up!

We hope you had a Merry Christmas!

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100 Likes!

December 23rd, 2012

Tonight, Kristi Truman was the 100th person to like our page on Facebook!  I have no official award for you Kristi, just the notoriety of marking a milestone for us.  Thank you!

Thank you to all of you who have been by on the last couple nights to see the display- traffic has definitely increased this weekend, and hopefully it keeps up through this week.  I will be out on the drive with candy for visitors tomorrow night and possibly Christmas night, as well, so come by and say hi!      Due to a change of plans, we will not be out on the drive tonight.  Tomorrow night we will, for sure.

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5000 Visits

December 15th, 2012

The site had it’s 5000th visit early this morning.  That seems like a lot to me 🙂  I’m glad it is being seen, and hope to keep those numbers rising.

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Took in some lights tonight

December 15th, 2012

Not any of mine 🙂   We visited three shows tonight- Mike Read, Tyson H, and Mike Arnott.  That doesn’t seem like much, but there was over 100 miles of driving involved to pull that off!

Mike had his open house and cookie swap tonight at his new location near Peculiar, MO.  He had quite a crowd. His show grew a bunch with his newfound space.  Nice work, Mike!

From there, we went out to Gardner to Tyson’s display, G-Town Christmas.  This is the first time I have made it out to his place.  The show is really nice, and not as frenetic or busy as some of the others.  I enjoyed it.

The last stop was Mike Arnott’s display, Shawnee Shines.  Mike has added to his display each year, and his over-the-top leaping arch is something else! As usual, his family was out in the drive, handing out candy canes and serving hot chocolate.

If you would like more info on any of these shows, visit the links on the front page.

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Tonight’s Show 12/14

December 14th, 2012

The lights show will run as planned tonight.  This will not be done to diminish the tragedy in CT today, but maybe as a means to honor those lost, as well as those who are grieving.  It may also give a means for those in the area to spend some time with their own children, somewhere other than in front of the continuous news reports on the tv.

Grab your kids, hug them, and take them out to see some lights.  I’m going to.

BW

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First Interview

December 9th, 2012

I had my first interview today.  Jenna, a student at Mill Creek High School, chose me as the subject of an interview for one of her classes.  She was very professional, came prepared with good questions, and also asked a few off the cuff.  She did very well.  She took some daytime photos of the display, and plans to do some night shots, as well, which she agreed to share.  Watch for them in upcoming updates!

The weather is finally turning colder.  Makes it easier to believe that Christmas is only a little over two weeks away.

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A Quick Reminder

December 8th, 2012

For those of you who are visiting, or plan to visit the display, please remember to turn off your headlights, keep the radio at a reasonable volume, and avoid blocking the driveways of my neighbors.  Go ahead and block mine- I’ll get over it 🙂

Thank you!

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Blue Light Special

December 3rd, 2012

I had several strands of blue lights that had been used for two years, and they looked okay upon initial inspection, so I put them out.  Well, in short order, I found that the lights had more white than blue, and my four new 4′ trees looked much better than the 8 that had the older strings.  It was killing me to watch the show with the colors so obviously different.  I finally got out there Sunday and put new strands on all the trees that had the older strands, and man, what a difference.  They look so much better.  If you came by and saw the show with the old lights, I’m sorry, lol.  I should have looked a little closer before I put them out.  Live and learn.

In other news:

-We had our first tour bus of the season over the weekend.

-The JoCo driving tour page has our listing all updated, and I have been watching the hits trickle into our website from theirs.

-Many houses in our area have lights up.  I can look out from the front porch to the North and see a lot of houses with lights up.  It’s nice.

-Traffic at the show has been slowly increasing.  I am looking forward to the increase as we draw nearer to Christmas.

 

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Your Photos and Videos

November 30th, 2012

If you stopped by the show and took some good shots with your camera, phone, ipad, or whatever else, we’d like copies!  Lots of creative photos get taken, and we would like to share them on our site.  Appropriate credit will be given, as will our profuse thanks.  Touch base with us through the contact page for how to get them to us.  Thank you!

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Visitor Feedback

November 30th, 2012

I received a nice message tonight from a family who visited the display:

“I took the family out to see your display for the first time tonight…we LOVED it!  We could have stayed for hours.  You have an amazing display with music rich in tradition.  Thank you for making this Christmas brighter for the xxxxxxx Family!!
Merry Christmas to you and yours!”

It is nice to hear feedback like this.  Gives me a little impetus to push through the aggravating times, like when I have a channel stick on an SSR and I have to replace it mid-show 🙂  That *might* have happened last night.  Thankfully I had some backup units here, one of which I was able to stick together and swap into the live show.

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Added a new song tonight

November 27th, 2012

I finally had enough time to finish up a sequence that I have been wanting to do, and I added it to the show tonight:  an edited version of August Burns Red’s  ‘Carol of the Bells.’   This addition gives me 17 total tracks, including 10 songs and 7 pop culture bits. Songs include:

Louis Armstrong- ‘Cool Yule’ and ‘Zat You, Santa Claus?’
Harry Connick, Jr- ‘Rudolph’
Jeff Scheetz- ‘Sleigh Ride’ (edited)
Vince Guaraldi- ‘Skating’
TSO- ‘O Come All Ye Faithful / O Holy Night’ and ‘The First Noel’
Bing Crosby- ‘Let it Snow’
Muppets- ‘Mahna Mahna’

The pop culture bits include snippets from several Christmas movies, including:

How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Christmas Story
Christmas Vacation
Miracle on 34th St
It’s a Wonderful Life
A Charlie Brown Christmas
The Muppet’s Christmas Carol

All in all, a decent variety of music, and some fun one-liners to break it all up.  It makes for about a 25 minute show, and you get variety even if you only stay for two or three sequences.

 

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It’s the Little Things

November 26th, 2012

I had a neighbor stop by today and drop off a Christmas card with a nice note and a check for the charity.  That made my day!  Not only was it a nice message from one of our new neighbors here, but also a nice gesture to Kansas City Rescue Mission.  Very cool.

Even before the card, we had already collected more than we did in the entire 2010 season (which was pretty dismal, hence the lack of display charity last year). Pretty dang cool. I anticipate it picking up even more as we close in on Christmas and the traffic increases.

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Out sightseeing…

November 24th, 2012

We made our way over to see Tim Dorr’s display tonight, and the changes he made this year are awesome!  His display is primarily led lights, along with some pixel strips that allow almost infinite colors, while each ‘bulb’ is actually separately controllable.  This makes your imagination the only limit to your sequencing.  It looked great, Tim!

For more details, visit here:  www.frontdorr.com

In other news, I finally took some photos of our display, and have added them to the new 2012 Show Stills page here:  http://williamschristmaslights.com/photos/2012-show-stills/

 

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Two nights down. So far, so good.

November 24th, 2012

I had intended to update this yesterday, but it got a little crazy around here.  Thanksgiving day, we fed 18 here at the house, and then kicked off the light show that evening.  We had some good traffic, including our neighbor’s entire Thanksgiving gathering standing outside watching.  Yesterday, we had an oven give up (sparks and smoke and all), so then the scramble to replace it commenced.  We accomplished that, and then added two dedicated power circuits for the lights, finishing about 10 minutes before the open was to begin.  We had a good number of people come through during the open house, and short of a looping issue in the software, the show ran as planned.  Thanks to everyone who came by.  Tonight, we plan to go see a couple displays, starting with Tim Dorr’s:  www.frontdorr.com     I am also going to try and get a few pictures tonight, so I can replace the outdated ones on the website.

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Most visits ever

November 21st, 2012

Today was the busiest day the website has ever had!  There has been a steady uptick as we neared the kick-off date, and as the site has been promoted by KCRM and others.  It’s pretty exciting, and I hope we can carry the momentum right through the season

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A New Shirt

November 21st, 2012

One of my co-workers just gave me this shirt:

That made my day 🙂

Now to get stuff done, so that I can live up to it, lol.

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KCRM’s Christmas Season Newsletter

November 20th, 2012

KCRM has their Holiday 2012 Connection newsletter available.  We will have these on site, as well, to hand out to those who have questions about who they are and what they do.  You can also read through it here:

These folks do a great work, and I hope we can help them out this season.  Remember, you can drop off clothing, hygiene items, and several other things in lieu of cash.  Just see their Immediate Needs page for ideas.

Only a couple more days until we kick this thing off!  Or on, technically…  we will turn it on.  🙂

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Finally Set Up.

November 19th, 2012

That took longer that I figured it would, but as of last night, the physical setup of the display is complete. I started into modifying the sequences, and finished the ‘pop culture bits’ last night. Tonight I will start into the songs, and hope to make some good progress. I need to, as I am about out of time. So far the test sequences look great, and I am excited to see the show run though. The FM transmitter is set up, as well, and played all day Saturday with a good clean signal and no glitches.

Next year should be less of a crunch, as we won’t be moving just before set-up begins 🙂

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Our First Sponsor

November 16th, 2012

I’d like to give a big Thank You to Mike Sailer at Signco KC for supplying us with vinyl lettering for some of our signage, as well as a couple large QR Code stickers to allow those with smartphones to snap a picture and go straight to the website.  Mike did our lettering a couple years ago, and last year I didn’t need to have any made, but this year he not only made the products, he donated them to the cause!  Thanks again, Mike!  If you need any signs, lettering,  a vehicle wrap, or anything along those lines, visit Signco, and thank him with your patronage.

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Up and running…

November 15th, 2012

The website, that is.  After what seemed like an eternity, and some support help from the new host, the site is moved.  I have run through it, and believe all the links to be functional, as well.  Bonus!

Since my last post, I have upgraded the house to a 200A service.  The former 100A panel simply was not going to be enough- all the lights on at once would draw about 105A!  This gives us some head room to grow into, as well.

I made up a handout for my neighbors, to warn them of what was coming.  So far, the response has been favorable:

The mega tree, 4′ trees, mini trees, candy canes, 11′ candy cane, arches and north poles have all made it into the yard.  Most of them have been wired up and tested.  I have one more 24 channel controller to get out (hopefully tonight), and them those will all be placed, as well.  The final channel profile is completed, so now I will edit the 20 or so sequences that I have for this year.  Should be fun 🙂

I still need to get the donation box built and complete the signs for it, get the ‘tune-to’ signs out, and run some full-fledged tests.  The blow molds and a couple small elements need to be put out.  Need to run some power supply lines out for all it.  Not too bad.  It looks like we will be good to go for a Thanksgiving night kickoff.

Well, back to work 🙂

 

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Time is growing short

November 1st, 2012

Snowflake Rack

We have made a lot of progress, but there is so much more to do.  I sat down and made a list last night, and immediately wished I hadn’t, lol.  The nativity star is up, as are the angels and the snowflakes.  The flag pole is set for the mega-tree.  We worked on the fence line strands last night.  I still have bunches of stuff to get out, wire up and test, plus the rest of the sequences that need to be modified and completed.   My electrical service upgrade is scheduled for next week, which will give me a chance to power it all up without browning out the house 🙂

All in all, good progress has been made, but there’s still a LOT to do.  Guess I will get back to work…

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New Charity Confirmed!

October 29th, 2012

We have been given the green light to announce our charitable partner for this year’s light show:  Kansas City Rescue Mission.  You may have heard their commericals recently on the radio.  They do an amazing work here in the KC area, and we are excited to help them with our donation drive.  Visit the new Donations Page for more information!

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