The Musical Christmas Tree
2005 photo
Newspaper article here
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Fact Sheet
How we got here
Newspaper article here
The Musical Christmas Tree is actually more than a "tree". It consists of a conical ("tree-shaped") framework with lights on it, plus many peripheral and yard decorations. The lights are controlled by a computer and change patterns with the music heard from a tiny FM transmitter in the control room.
How did we get into this business? We have a whole page on that subject. And there is a whole language and stuff like that for it. There is also a page of technical details.
Because the display (along with this site) is dedicated to the Reason for the Season, Jesus Christ, we have no popular icons such as Frosty, Santa, Rudolph (had a venison roast the other day for dinner; he was delicious!), or the Grinch. Sometimes this makes it hard to find decorations. We have considered candy canes and might use them sometime if we get them really cheap. Last year we got 10 snowflakes after Christmas for about $1.00 each, for example; we saw the same this year for $6.00 each. Icicle lights are very popular around here, and hence expensive; swag lights are just as pretty but not popular so they're fairly cheap even before Christmas. (Besides, who needs icicle lights? We have genuine icicles this year!)
The "tree" itself is technically a secular decoration, as are the wreaths and such; however, we wanted to have something out in the yard besides a shed with a couple of hay bales -- not that there's anything wrong with that, but it won't exactly stop traffic; you gotta have blinky lights.
People are funny. Some people come and sit through multiple "performances", 20-minute cycles of lights and music. Others come and sit through part of one song. Some just pass on through; we call them "drive-bys". (Well, they saw it in the paper and come this way on their way home from work. Or in some cases, they're making sure they know where we are and then they bring the spouse, kids and Grandma.) Some people come four and five nights. But the funniest are the ones driving Cadillacs; big, shiny battleship-sized cars. Most are older folks, and I don't criticize their having a comfortable car, but some of them can't hardly navigate those big boats into a double parking place in the dark. One lady couldn't figure out how to get the headlights turned off or even tune the radio; so much stuff is automatic that she never had to deal with it. One guy couldn't get our FM station because he had to turn off his satellite radio first; he had more electronic gear in his car than we have in the house (if you don't count the Christmas Tree computer), and it all interfered with each other. An engineer, I would guess.
Everyone is interested in how many lights we have. OK, so it's about 12,000 give or take a few. However, many people have that many lights just outlining their houses; I mean it's 120 strings of lights, that's all. (See the FAQ sheet for latest data.) The really big displays around the country have over 20 times as many lights, like 250,000. Some of these guys brag about their $1000.00 power bills. Me? I don't even notice the power bill; it's usually over $100.00 once the heating season starts, and the "tree" adds probably $50.00 on each of two bills. Under the computer control, at most half the lights are on at any given time anyway. If the tree is blue, for example, only one-sixth of the lights are on (one out of six colors). So people only see an average of maybe a third of the lights on at a time, which means we pay for the power for about 4000 lights. And, of course, the computer turns them all off at about 11:00 so they're not on all night.