12-05-2004 Decorating

(Written on 12/18/2004, so some details are lost to memory, getting older, you know....)

As I stated on the previous page, the maple tree was completed today after extensive work yesterday afternoon. The first picture below is the same as the on postd on yesterday's page. It shows the completed tree with the candy cane surround, and th single set of wire arches. I spent about 20 minutes trying to fix the other set this morning, and gave it up to try to fix them some evening. (Still not fixed as of 12/18/2004)

By the time I finished the maple tree, there were 2,718 lights, including the 12 ornament balls hanging from the branches. After I finished the tree, the lawn was free to work on, so I added the arch lights to one side, also the 12 lighted candy canes, the two blow mold candle sticks and the blow mold Christmas tree. This give the maple tree area a total of over 3,000 lights and really illuminatd the center of the lawn.

After I completed the maple tree I moved on to the weeping cherry tree. This year I opted to do something different with the tree. The tree suffered serious winter damage last winter, and a majority of the tree is now actually dead. I have waited until next spring to trim off the dead growth, but the dead branches have become so brittle, I didn't think they would withstand the pressure of the net lights. We had a new collection of lighted balls and flickering snowflakes, so I put those on the tree instead. After that, I set up the nativity set with all the blowmold decorations and some of the wire frames I did not get out last year. This year, the cherry tree only has 1,100 lights instead of the 1,650 net lights we had last year, but it makes a nice change.

The next project for the day was the kneeling santa. The E-Z trees we traditionally put in this scene suffered catistrophic damage from all the snow last winter. The bottom wires got stretched so much from the settling snow, they broke the vertical wire run up the pole.... Of course, I forgot this fact when we were at Ace Hardware on the Friday after Thanksgiving when they had spiral trees relly cheap.... Amazingly, the lights on the animated trumpeting angels all worked! Unfortunately, the snow last winter burned out one of the animator motors so the wings on one doesn't move. I replaced all the lights in the inflatable soldiers, and we had very high winds that night, which flopped the inflatables all over, burning out most if not all of the lights... Still have not replaced the lights as of 12/18/2004.

One of the last things I worked on for the day was the front door. I put together one of our lighted wire frame arches, and amazingly, all of these lights worked right out of the box as well! After that, I put the blow molds on the front step, and I am still thinking about adding some other new items to the step, but not sure if there is enough room for the new items.

The final new item for the day was the small lighted spring form snowman between the maple tree and the trumpeting angels.

Below is a panorama of the entire yard as of tonight. As of tonight we have a total of 19,500 lights making up this year's display.