NANCY and BILL: Exterior Illumination - Saturday

Anyone who has seen the movie “Christmas Vacation” starring Chevy Chase, knows that exterior illumination is the art of displaying Christmas lights on the outside of one’s house. Our son Brian and his wife Chris (to some degree) really get into the Christmas Spirit every year when it comes to decorating the outside of their home with lights.

Today was the day he needed help. With the weather cooperating, a balmy 65 degrees, Brian recruited me, his in-laws and a couple of friends to string a few lights on his house in Columbia, SC. A few lights is all relative to Exterior Illuminators ;o)) When it was all said and done he had somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 lights. I lost count of the number of strings we hung.

My initial job was to get out all the strings of lights and test them to ensure all the bulbs were working. If they were not, I repaired them by replacing either the bulb or socket until they did work. This little task took about 4 hours ;o((

While I was doing my task, Brian was on the roof covering it with white lights and spelling out “NOEL” with colored lights.

After a short lunch, we had the entire crew putting up lights for another few hours.

Bill working around the windows.

Chris and Rhonda working on the tree.

Mark and Samantha working on another tree.

Santa’s Helpers admiring their work !!!

Brian attached all the plugs to a music “computer” which control the lights. They will flash at different times to the beat of the music. It was about 5:30 and almost dark enough to test things out. I had difficulty taking a still picture of moving lights, but you can get the idea ;o))

Click here CHRISTMAS HOUSE to see the video Brian sent us :o))

After our hard work, we had a great spaghetti dinner and most of us were ready to call it a day. It is hard work putting up Christmas lights ;o))

10 comments:

owensontheroadNovember 29, 2011 at 6:43 AM
Wow! Nice show :) I bet it's beautiful blinking to the music!
Catherine, Jo Beth and GraceNovember 29, 2011 at 8:34 AM
Looks Beautiful. Glad I don't have to take them down :)
TravelwithwhippetsNovember 29, 2011 at 8:57 AM
Very cool. A lot of work. I am happy to report that our Christmas decorations now fit in one box :-),
SherryNovember 29, 2011 at 9:49 AM
Sure does look beautiful. But what a job! Hope his electric bill doesn't suffer too badly.

Is your son's street one of those where everyone decorates and then the rest of us drive by and admire???
Gail HouleNovember 29, 2011 at 10:44 AM
Wow. That's a lot of lights. Do you get to go help take them down too???
Gin and SylNovember 29, 2011 at 2:10 PM
I'll ask the same thing. Who helps him take all of those down?
Syl
Nancy and BillNovember 29, 2011 at 7:23 PM
Well, we would like to know who helps him take the lights down also?? Not us ;o))

Any volunteers...perhaps it could be a moochdocking gig ;o))
RorikNovember 30, 2011 at 8:54 PM
Very Cool!! A lot of work with beautiful results.
Dan and TriciaDecember 1, 2011 at 6:18 PM
As much as I love Christmas lights, I equally loved the 5 minutes it took to decorate the RV for Christmas this year. ;-)
Paul and Marti DahlDecember 4, 2011 at 3:28 PM
I dislike decorating for Christmas. Everyone was always ready to put up the stuff but I never could find them when it came time to take it all down and put it away. I always got stuck with it.

So when I decided not to do it anymore, I got call "Scrooge". Can't figure that out.

I bet you can see your son's house from the Space Station.