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SavvyExacta
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Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 10:39 AM

What are some of the best holiday light displays you've seen this year? There is a great one in my neighborhood with a radio station you can tune into to see the lights synchronized with music. I'll try to post a video of it later on.

So much goes into these displays. Programming the lights is obviously a big piece, but even putting up all the lights must take a lot of time! I cheated this year, hanging icicle lights inside my porch so they show from the outside. Plus some battery operated strands at the end of the driveway. Hopefully next year I'll have an outdoor outlet and can do a little more.
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Usbport
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#1

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 11:03 AM

Always my favorite light show (from Google Images):

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SavvyExacta
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#2
In reply to #1

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 11:04 AM

Good one. And I'll never forget the night I saw the northern lights! That was truly an amazing experience.
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Usbport
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#10
In reply to #2

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 5:40 PM

A number of years ago I lived in central Florida, and one Christmas Eve around 9 PM we had a very light snow fall. It wasn't enough to stick to the ground, and the flakes were tiny, but it was neat to stand under the porch light and watch the snow come down - on Christmas Eve!

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TonyS
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#3

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 11:47 AM

Think of the environment

Bah! Humbug!

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SavvyExacta
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#4
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Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 12:20 PM

This reminds me of a commercial I saw recently. A woman notices that her elderly neighbor is sad during the holidays, so she decorates his front yard with lights. He's happy about it.

If that happened to my grandparents, they might appreciate the thought, but they wouldn't like it. They wouldn't want to pay the extra amount on the electric bill!
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TonyS
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#5
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Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 12:52 PM

OK I'm Scrooge and I wouldn't pay.

The UK is heading for an energy crisis. I don't even want to think of the waste of energy christmas lights are responsible for.

I've lived through two periods of power restriction, I don't want to experience a third.
Sat in our intake sub in winter controlling power usage wasn't my idea of a fun christmas day.

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redfred
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#6

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 12:56 PM

The best holiday display I ever saw was brilliant in it's execution to tell the story. This was a display that grew over the time from Thanksgiving until Christmas. It was also done with no computer driven eye candy or musical copyright violations.

I think it started with one internally lit nut cracker soldier on the western part of the front lawn. Every night a few more lights and characters (inflatable snowmen, Grinch, 4ft. plastic candles, etc.) appeared on this home's lawn. On many a night a few characters were assembled but unlit. Once a character or lamp was lit it was on the next night. So this kept growing until two days before Christmas when only one single blue light was added to the top of a 20ft. flagpole found in the eastern part of the front lawn. The astute viewers of this display noticed now that about 1/4 of the characters were facing the flag pole while the rest were randomly oriented. On Christmas Eve night there were for the first time no new characters but every character was facing the flag pole with the blue light on top.

On Christmas night the lighting was starkly different. All of the characters and lights were still in their place from Christmas Eve but none were lit or inflated. The blue light on the top of flag pole was still lit. A spot light pointing down from just under the blue light shone down to the base of the flag pole. At the base of the flag pole was a beautiful creche, nativity set with a small baby in the crib. For the next twelve nights this is the only lighting that was lit at night.

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Every Christmas, I miss my friend, Bob. He still puts a smile on my atheist face every time I remember him.

Merry Christmas to all of my friends of CR4.

Merry Christmas Bob.

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Unredundant
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#7

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 1:10 PM

My Brother-in-law tried the laser projector, it throws tiny points of light on the house. The points look like someone took the time to string real lights over every thing.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

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lyn
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#11
In reply to #7

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 7:52 PM

Not to put a wet blanket on your B-in-Law's party, but if he lives anywhere near an airport:

Holiday decorations pose safety risk for aircraft pilots

Merry Christmas
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Andy Germany
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#14
In reply to #11

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/16/2015 2:33 AM

Didn't Tim Taylor help a flight to land safely one Christmas with his lights?

I could not find it on YouTube sadly!

Have you seen this?:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTFKjand2eE

To anyone putting up mains lights or anything using mains voltage outside, do please use an RCD or your local equivalent on the supply, just to make sure you stay around to enjoy ALL the effects!!!

Happy Christmas to all.

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jack of all trades
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#20
In reply to #14

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/16/2015 4:01 PM

That was a funny episode.

"DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE JESUS!!"

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#18
In reply to #11

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/16/2015 11:35 AM

That is a serious drawback! Thanks for the info.

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lyn
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#19
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Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/16/2015 1:47 PM

Welcome.
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Mike Proctor
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#8

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 4:40 PM
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lyn
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#9

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 4:53 PM

This is a Facebook link to a neighborhood just south of where we live.

It is over the top and gives you some idea of what people do for Christmas decorations.

Every year it just gets crazier.

The Great Christmas Light Fight
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kvsridhar
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#12

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/15/2015 9:12 PM

i like best the glow from within .....

OT for sure Savvy, but Merry Christmas

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Mr. small
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#13

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/16/2015 12:24 AM

I do not know if Obama will agree, like this stuff in the white house.

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suresh sharma
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#15

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/16/2015 7:55 AM

I have seen best musical lights at Sentosa Island Singapore.

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sharpstick
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#16

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/16/2015 8:10 AM

For raw decadent high energy holiday lighting - Osborne Family Lights at Disney's Epcot in Florida:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5LfQ8qyyd0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Osborne_Family_Spectacle_of_Dancing_Lights

This is the lest year. The whole street is being razed for a 9 acre Star Wars area.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/travel/attractions/the-daily-disney/os-disney-end-osborne-family-lights-20150911-post.html

A particularly high tech feature is that canopy. It's about 80 x 30 array of individually addressed color changing LEDs, like a giant monitor.
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BestInShow
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#17

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/16/2015 9:24 AM

A few years ago I read Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present. This book, set in Frisco, Texas, north of Dallas, follows a few Frisco families as a lens for examining the bazillion-dollar Christmas industry. One of the threads is about a guy who takes light displays so seriously he and some other like-minded people once bought and shared an entire shipping container of LED lights. Here's a link to his current (no electric-bill pun intended) display.
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PWSlack
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#21

Re: Best Holiday Light Displays

12/17/2015 5:03 AM

"Discreet" is a watchword. So is "taste". Often, both are absent.

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Andy Germany (1); BestInShow (1); jack of all trades (1); kvsridhar (1); lyn (3); Mike Proctor (1); Mr. small (1); PWSlack (1); redfred (1); SavvyExacta (2); sharpstick (1); suresh sharma (1); TonyS (2); Unredundant (2); Usbport (2)

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