It’s been a while since my last post, as I have been very busy with this year’s significant changes to our display. With the constant day long rain we are having here today, this gives me the opportunity to share with all of you what has been going on with the changes to this year’s (our 44th year) display.
On the installation side, which started October 1st, everything is off the house, except for the strobes and permanent lighting under the overhangs.
Our animated talking reindeer is out in the front vestibule, but is no longer mounted to the house. Along with him is our animated talking snowman.
On the South side of the house our new mega pixel tree has now been installed following 16 hours of setup for this new prop, as I converted what was the previous LED tree pole support system over to handle the number of pixels. The tree stands 3 feet taller than our previous red LED megatree. It is topped with a pixel star. The effects this tree and star produce are something to see!
Our front yard now has two corocanes and one 4 foot coroflake that are on movable metal poles, allowing flexibility of locations.
The 48 really big lights have been expanded into 4 rows with new pixel lighting, as well as having new effects.
We have some redesigned props, such as our “flying angel” over the house, among others.
To give folks a better chance to select the music playing, instead of having our control panel located on one side of the parking area, favoring the closest car parked next to it to be the one that makes the selections, it will be moved to the front of the display (near the tune to FM sign) to give all cars parked the same opportunity to select the music being played. My challenge is to find the best location possible, to avoid it from blocking the view to our front yard display elements.
On the projection mapping part of the display, located on the South side of the house, I have added several more scenes, each running about 5 minutes. In addition to the magical snowman scene, Santa’s workshop scene, and the Gingerbread family scene, this year will also feature Santa’s bakery and Santa’s post office, with all scenes now including sound from an outdoor speaker.
While I have the ability to broadcast that audio blue tooth to the cell phones of folks visiting the display, given the audio delays inherent in blue tooth I decided to forgo that. Just wind down a window and you can hear that audio.
Remember that we have the display’s synchronized music broadcast on FM 104.3Mhz, as always. A fact that some of you may not have noticed is that the song’s name (and artist) being played, is broadcast to your FM radio as text scrolling across your vehicle’s radio display. This assumes you have a newer radio, almost all of which support that.
What you can’t see is the new installed 125 feet of buried wiring leading out to Santa’s shed.
When it comes to our musically sequenced display songs, we have added several new ones for this year. They include Carol of the Bells by David Foster, Christmas eve Sarajevo by the TSO, You Make it Feel Like Christmas by Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton. I may have time later to sneak another one in.
Given the new display elements can feature some pretty amazing pixel effects, I have re-sequenced a number of songs to add these new effects. Twelve songs have been re-sequenced to include these new effects. They are: Mellekalikimaka, Holly Jolly Christmas, the Chipmunk song, Felix Navidad, I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, Jingle Bell Rock, Christmas Can Can, Little Drummer Boy, Candy Cane Lane, Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Little Saint Nick, and Let It Go!
Bottom line, hundreds of hours have been put in since the start of 2024, and I have another 5 weeks or so of setup (and updating and fixing props) remaining to get things finished for this year’s display.
On our website you will see a countdown clock indicating the time and day (after Thanksgiving) the display lights up for the season as well as the countdown to our Family Night where the North Pole characters return for their annual visit, handing out treats, accepting letters to Santa, posing for pictures, etc. all free of charge.
Our Family Night is the ONLY night visitors are allowed to actually walk in, rather than enjoying the display while parked in their vehicles.
Updates can be found on our website: https://youngschristmas.com and on Face Book: HollandsHolidayLights
Hope to see many of you soon,
Greg