History of Light Display

It all started back in 1992 during the holiday season when there were a few extra strings of lights left after decorating the tree inside.  I then took those extra lights and started stringing them all over the house.  There were lights taped to the ceiling around the living room, all over my bedroom, and up and down the hallway.  It was a crazy mess.  The lights kept falling down because they where just put up with masking tape and the tape kept drying out due to it being winter with the heat on in the house and not much moister in the air.  The following year my mom said to me you are not going to tape those lights all over the house, there going outside and so in 1993 the Outrageous Christmas Light display began.  Although the light display really didn't start to become spectacular for about 5 more years.   

In 1993 when the decorating started outside it was only a few strands of lights on a couple of the bushes in front of the house and around two of the windows.  After that it slowly grew to over the next 15 years to what we have now.  By going out ever year after Christmas and buying decorations after they went on sale and then use them the following year.  Those first few years included buying more lights and some things for the yard like a Santa, Snowman, and some Candles and Candy Canes.  Over the years the display grew and grew buy going out and buying more and more stuff.  Some places I would buy lots of stuff and at some stores I would buy nothing depending on what was left, what the price was, and what I was looking for.  Example being few years ago I wanted some new inflatable figures.  I bought two inflatable figures at 75% off for only $12 a piece.  Instead of the $50 they would have been.  Another Item that I bought was 27 strands of a hundred lights at 75% off for only $1 instead of the $4 another great deal and something I need to make a new addition to my display the next year.

The first 9 years of the display took place at a house on Seaman Ave.were I grew up. Then my family moved a few blocks to a house on 14th St. The move gave the display a great opportunity to grow.  The new house had a bigger yard and was also on a street with more traffic and gave the display more popularity.  When moving to the new house my first priority was to get more electricity to the garage so I could power my Christmas light display, there was only a small 2 outlet 20amp service in the garage.  So for the display to go on the power in the garage was upgraded to an 8 outlet 60amp service to handle the demand of the lights. The power at the original house was also upgraded well living there to handle the demand of the display. 

The first year at the new house was 2002 and had about 8,000 lights as well as some items in the yard like a nativity scene, Santa and his reindeer, candles, candy canes, snowmen, and more.  The 2003 display brought even more about 10,000 lights and a couple of very unique additions including a pair of 9 foot tall Candy Canes on either side of the driveway that I made and speakers outside to play Christmas music along with the light display.  The 2004 display brought about even more lights which brought the total to over 12,000 lights mostly due to the addition of lights on the roof of the house and garage. Also due to blowing the breaker in 2004 the power supply in the garage for 2005 was upgraded from 60 amps to 120 amps to handle the new additions for 2005 and future ones.  The 2005 display took over 60 hours to put up over a period of a couple of weeks with most of the work being done during the week of Thanksgiving.