Southeast Texas Lights

Nederland, Texas

FAQs

Q. How many lights are there?
A. Christmas Tree: 13,000. Peppermint Fence: 6,800. Tress and bushes: 6,500. Roofline, eaves, windows, front door and garage doors: 3,500. Yard outline and candy cane chasers: 1,700. Grand Total: 31,400 mini lights.

Q. How long did it take you to set this all up?
A. For the 2007 season, it took about 4 days to set it up and make sure it all worked but that's not the whole story. Building the tree and stringing the garland and the lights on it took several weeks. Sequencing the songs took about a day for each one. We only had 7 songs and 32 channels of computer animation to work with in 2007 so sequencing went faster than some of the other animated displays out there that have hundreds of channels to work with.

The 2008 season brought the peppermint fence. It took 2 days to string the lights and another day of sequencing per original song to add it to all the sequences. We also added a few more songs this year and each of them took several days to sequence. We animated the house, bushes, doors and windows in 2008 and stringing those lights took two days.

Q. You electric bill must be HUGE?!
A. Not like you think. The lights are almost never all on at the same time like in a static display so our electric bill during the holidays in 2007 was actually less than when the lights weren't animated. We've added more lights this year but the animation helps keep the bill manageable. If they WERE all to be turned on at once, they would draw around 90 to 100 amps.

Q. How many extension cords did you have to use?
A. There is close to 4,000 feet of extension cord stretched out in the yard. Some are homemade, some are store bought.

Q. How do you play the music over MY radio in MY car?
A. I opened up and modified one of those small ipod FM transmitters. (You know the ones you can get at WalMart or Target that will let you play your ipod on your car stereo) I found the instructions for the modification on several Christmas enthusiast websites and basically just added an antenna to it.

Q. Who's voice is that in the "commercials" between songs? It doesn't SOUND like you...
A. That's because I had a cold on the day that I recorded those spots... Ahem... I'm just kidding. I can't take credit for the voiceovers. I used Kevin at TheDementedElf.com for my voiceovers and couldn't be happier with them!

Q. How much did it cost to put all this together?
A. You don't want to know! When I started looking into animating I thought I could get by spending as little as $400 for the first two controllers and such. As it turns out, that was just the tip of the iceberg. lol

Please don't be tempted to get out of your car and walk around in the display. We can almost guarantee that you WILL trip on a cord and possibly damage the display or get a little shock. However, if you DO get out and work your way into the display, please take a minute or two to look for the security cameras. Chances are, if you're standing in my yard, at least one of the three will record your image for the authorities...