Christmas decoration

[Jack Frederick]

My wife gets the house. I get the tree in the yard. 10 grade stakes, 10’ pole in my case, 5mm Paracord, a bunch of small tie-wraps and several stings of lights. I’ve done this for probably 8 years or so. Being three dimensional all the lights show up from any angle. Goes up quickly too.

[Jack Frederick]

Well, after waiting twenty minutes for the third photo to download, I’ll try another post.

[Bill Dufour]

I never understood why Rockefeller center in NYC does not have a live tree full time in a permanent planter.?

[Dave Zellers]

I love outdoor decorations that you can see from inside.

[Jim Koepke]

Candy won't let me put the lights on our tree. She always wants more. She tends to get the light strings tangled or pulls them too tight.

She will let me hang a few ornaments.

Maybe I should put some lights on the shop for Christmas.

jtk

[Mike Soaper]

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Under the Christmas tree 2020

The cardboard houses are probably from 1930's -1950's

[Mike Soaper]

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one more

[Doug Garson]

Here's our outdoor tree, started as a sapling we picked up at a trade show about twenty years ago.
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[Dave Zellers]

The cardboard houses are probably from 1930's -1950's

Nice! Is there a train by any chance that runs on those tracks? With or without, very nice.

[Dave Zellers]

Here's our outdoor tree, started as a sapling we picked up at a trade show about twenty years ago.

Cool. Tree? Looks Cedarish.

[Keith Outten]

Great decorating job Mike, look like a lot of very hard/tedious work.

[Jim Becker]

I got fancy this year and put up a...wreath...on the front door. :) We live "in town" now, so that seemed neighborly.

Inside, there's stockings and a tree, but the latter is very difference from the 9' monster we used to put up at the old property. Very different. :D

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[Doug Garson]

Cool. Tree? Looks Cedarish.
Yep, Western Red Cedar and the ornaments are also WRC from old fence boards.

[Mike Soaper]

Nice! Is there a train by any chance that runs on those tracks? With or without, very nice.

Thanks Dave. Yep, there's a train, most of it is from my childhood. The engine is a lionel that will still puff smoke if I put some liquid smoke in the smokestack, the cars are made by marx. All in all it's held up pretty well considering how many kids have played with it.

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[Mike Soaper]

Great decorating job Mike, look like a lot of very hard/tedious work.

Thanks Keith!, The hardest part for me is trying be creative in laying out the track and buildings so that it isn't the same as any previous years.

[Mike Soaper]

for those that are interested here's a 2 min youtube video (warts and all) of the train garden

hope the video works


https://youtu.be/0u_V3w-7RK8

[Dave Zellers]

Fantastic! I grew up with a Lionel train that took smoke pellets that I loved but it was lost in a house fire.

Absolutely love seeing that.

[Brian Elfert]

When I bought my first house (no wife or kids) I bought a bunch of Christmas decorations thinking I would be putting them up every year. I put up a string of lights and a fake wreath the first year. The second year I bought and decorated a tree because I had people over for Christmas eve. The decorations have been boxed up for over 15 years and I have never decorated since.

I keep meaning to give the decorations away to save space. About four weeks ago would have been the right time to do it. A lot of people have already decorated for this year.

[Alan Rutherford]

It's a Christmas decoration for the next few weeks but it stays up year-round. In 2016 I told my wife I'd make her a star and I did. It's been shining over our house day and night ever since.

The frame is air-dried Cypress 1x2. The lights are inexpensive weatherproof LED strips mounted on plastic molding from Lowe's which is then screwed to the frame. There are 10 strips of lights and each has a 4-wire lead which is soldered to the contacts on the strip. The leads are bundled and go to 4 connectors connected to screw terminals. Hot glue covers the solder connections to the strips. There's a 5-amp 12-volt power supply and a battery backup for the frequent power failures.

The star is controlled by an Arduino which is programmed to slowly cycle through all the colors. It also has a brightness control. At night, it gives some light to a large area of the property without the glare of floodlights.

The original LED's lasted about 4 years before colors started shifting. I replaced them a year ago.

There are locations where I'd think this was pretty tacky, but we're rural here and surounded by trees. There's only one other house that can see it and they love it. So do I and most importantly, so does my wife.
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[Kev Williams]

A couple of years ago I found a Xmas train that goes ON the tree instead of under it-
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Not hardly a Lionel but it does work, and it's out of the way of paws and little hands! ;)

[Clifford McGuire]

I'm in charge of the outdoor decorations. She's in charge of the indoors.

The previous owners planted some blue spruce on the property line. I got some lights on before the snow came. I was able to catch the moon peeking between the branches.

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[Dave Zellers]

Now there's only 1 blue spruce. :cool:

Awesome!

[Malcolm Schweizer]

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Home Depot had Poinsettia for $2 each, so I bought 25 of them. The ones out front are fake. The rest are real.

[Mel Fulks]

Malcolm, Looking festive and lavish there. That’s the perfect place for watching “Gone With The Wind”, Especially if you have only seen it
a few times !

[Roger Feeley]

The guy next door is doing some remodeling and has an outhouse in his front lawn for the workers. He threw a string of lights over it and put a wreath on the door. My family thinks this is about the funniest thing ever. I think it cute but…meh.

If they are still around at Easter, I’m going to make a giant pair of bunny ears.

[Jack Frederick]

We had a bit of snow the other night.