SCREENSHOT of Alek's 2013 Controllable Christmas Lights for Celiac Disease

Use the three christmas webcams for a live view of over 20,000 christmas lights and also CONTROL them - heck, you can even inflate (or deflate) the giant Elmo, Frosty, Santa, and Homer Simpson - D'OH! All three webcams are online from Thanksgiving to Jan 1st between 1700 to 2200 MST (GMT-7) which is when you can turn stuff on & off to entertain the neighbors. Plus send "Instant Messages via Webcam" for all to see. HO HO HO! ;-)

If you enjoy the christmas lights, please consider donating a few dollars (tax deductible) to the over $80,000 raised for the Center for Celiac Research at Massachusetts General Hospital.

$1,000: Bronner's Christmas Wonderland - Christmas Lights Etc - Mr. Costumes
$100: Anonymous - RTD Dude - Sparky - Bluto ($500)
$1: Dirk and Kyle Komarnitsky ... and their Big Green Buddy and other $1-$99 contributions Click here for info on how to make a charitable donation for Celiac Disease

Santa-Homer Cursor: Remove - Tiny - Small - Normal - Big - HULK'in

Free Christmas Music

Webcams and X10 Controls will be live from 4:00PM to Midnight MST on Christmas Eve ... HO-HO-HO! ;-)

I have entered a $5,000 christmas lights contest and will donate any winnings to charity ... read more and I appreciate your support and vote! ;-)

☺Welcome back Windoze Firefox Surfer 050.134.212.157 from Lafayette Colorado United States (40.0153°N 105.1076°W) United States flag

You have visited 475 times, last at 2013_12_24_17:57:22.268 - is your name Griswold? ;-) ☺

Halloween & Christmas FAQ should answer most questions - plus some misc. media reports
The lights are wind powered and carbon neutral - Al Gore would be proud!
The Christmas decorations throughout the years and even more cool Christmas pictures
Other folks who have done nutty stuff like this and watch entertaining time-lapse footage of Christmas lights videos
More about the Zany Guy behind all this and also see his Halloween Decorations! ;-)
What is new for Christmas 2013 and for Halloween 2013

HULK says Puny Humans can add some cheerful christmasy comments now in the Christmas Blog

While I appreciate the folks who have asked if they can donate/PayPal to cover the costs of the lights and (wind powered and carbon offsett'ed!) electricity, I've never asked for donations and don't plan to change that. While it is a bit of work to put up all the Christmas stuff, I do it anyway for the neighborhood kids and the web site is just my way of saying "Merry Christmas" to folks around the world. If you feel compelled to make some sort of donation, I've been involved with celiac disease so make a donation toward medical research at the Center for Celiac Research - tell 'em Komar.Org sent 'ya! ;-)

Circuit Layout & Electrical Analysis for Christmas 2013
Circuit   X10-Zone   Amps   Lights   Description
Panel-1       1       5.4    2,500   Burrito Reindeer, Christmas Tree, Presents
Balcony       1       3.0    1,000   Swag, Bells, Stars, Wreaths, Tree, Plane
Panel-2       2       5.5    2,000   10 foot and lower LED lighted tree, lower Juniper
Balcony       2       3.0      500   Stars and Inflatable Tree/Grinch/Homer/Santa, HULK Spotlight!
Panel-3       3       8.1    3,000   Sidewalk Candy Canes & Figurines, West Tree, Train, Santa Sleigh
Garage-E      3       4.0    1,600   Garage Icicles, Front Door Swag
Garage-E      4       3.5      800   Christmas Trees hanging from Garage
Panel-5       4       6.0    2,200   Upper Roof Icicles, Purple Orbs, Column/Bubble Lights
Panel-4       4       8.0    1,500   Snow Globe, LED Tree, Penguin, Bells, Santa Heli, SANTA!
Panel-2       5       2.0      500   Giant Inflatable Frosty, Red Topped Mini-Frosty, Tin Man
Garage-W      5       0.6      100   Inflatable Elmo - Tickle me!
Window-U      5       0.8      500   Upper Window Decorations
Panel-2       6       3.5      700   HO, Inflatable Frosty Family
Garage-W      6       1.5      400   SpongeBob SquarePants, Garage Stars
Panel-2       7       2.2      700   HO, Inflatable Pumpkin - Jack is Back!!!
Garage-W      7       0.6       50   Inflatable Santa - twelve feet high!
Window-L      7       1.2      500   Lower Window Decorations
Panel-2       8       3.5      800   Santa Balloon, Doggie, LED Reindeer Family
Panel-5       8       1.0      400   Chimney Stars & Swag
Garage-W      8       0.8       50   Inflatable Homer Simpson - D'OH!
Panel-5       *       4.0    1,800   ON/OFF (1/2), Santa Skier (5), Roof Outline (6), Santa Plane (7)
Office        *       1.8      400   Various stuff in Santa's Workshop!  ;-)
                                        1:Rainier Beer    2:Santa's Workshop    3:Candles/Light-UP!  4:Bells/Hulk Lamp
                                        5:Merry Banner    6:Groovy Lava Lamps   7:Stepping Santa     8:Present/LED Cube
TOTALS       22      70.0   22,000   TOTALS

A question often asked is how much does it cost to light the holiday display - the electrical meter does spin a bit faster. That's easy to calculate - with all 22,000 lights ON, the current draw is 70 amps. Multiply by 120 Volts and divide by 1,000 to get 8.4 KiloWatts. The electricity cost in Colorado is about 10 cents per KiloWatt-Hour, so to run the display continuously for an hour, it costs 84 cents/hour - not much! But remember that Internet Surfers are turning the lights on & off ... so divide that by two and then multiply by the 5 hours/day it's active, and the electricty costs 210 cents per day. Multiply that by 31 days and for $65, a whole month of holiday fun is provided to people around the world ... plus some awareness and thousands of dollars in donations for Celiac Disease Research!

2013 Christmas Lights Webcam Updates

For reference, here is the christmas 2012 webcam updates.

2013_10_14: The warmup for Christmas is the halloween webcam which was turned on today. The 2013 halloween decorations have 10,000 lights plus giant inflatable Frankenstein, Grim Reapers, Pumpkins, Witches, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Homer Simpson - D'OH! ;-)

2013_10_30: It's the day before Halloween, so the Christmas Blog has been turned on for those fans that want to start commenting.

2013_10_31: Another crazy-fun Halloween night! Almost 200 trick-or-treaters came by as the weather was mild, although gusty winds came up later in the evening. They almost cleaned me out of candy (I'm very generous, especially early on) and I also passed out shots of Chocolate Wine, EggNog, and/or "Adult Chocolate Milk" for the "big" kids. Check out all the action in the time-lapse halloween movies while listening to some halloween music and read the funny commentary in the halloween blog.

2013_11_15: Thanksgiving is late this year, but I hope to start working on the inflatables and other misc. this weekend.

2013_11_28: I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving - my wife made an awesome turkey. My Mom is visiting and has been a great help in setting up the display.

2013_12_01: The webcams and X10 controls were turned on and it was a good first night ... except the wind came up with more forecast tomorrow - hopefully not like the 70+ MPH winds that clobbered the display in 2008 - D'OH! ;-)

2013_12_04: The high temperature yesterday was 60°F just after Noon ... but then the thermometer plummeted as the arctic blast arrived and it is single digits this morning and we may set a record low tonight of around -10°F ... gotta love Colorado weather! We also got about 3" of fresh snow with more coming down. And while most people shovel their driveways, I also have to go out and sweep the Christmas Lights so you can see 'em through the snow! ;-)

2013_12_05: Per Blog post #118, The Christmas Train is BAACCCKKKK!!!! This was a fixture for several years until those 70+ MPH winds clobbered it 5 years ago ... but after some "Open-Train-Surgery" along with a controller transplant, plus replacing dozens of burnt out bulbs, it is back in operation and chugging along ... HO-HO-HO! ;-) 2013_12_08: Our neighborhood has a big Chrismas shin-dig which includes a horse-drawn sleigh that takes the kids around the nieghborhood - needless to say, my house is a popular stop! ;-)

2013_12_09: One of the SR227 X10 Super Sockets blew out - I typically lose a couple of these a year due to all of the ON/OFF's - but I was able to fix some and Internet Surfers can again say "Give me Full Power Scotty"

2013_12_21: The 15' Home Depot/Gemmy Santa Balloon has a tear in the envelope. Gemmy was able to send me a replacement in two days - what OUTSTANDING customer service!

2013_12_24: We shot our family picture - came out pretty decent! ;-)