Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How many lights are there?
Answer: Thousands. A few years back, I estimated about 20,000. But keeping track is way too much work, so I stopped trying to count. A more interesting question, I think: “How many zip ties are used in the display?”
Q: How much is your electric bill?
Answer: Not as much as you might think. The summer bills running the Air Conditioning are higher. LED lights have allowed for me to add lights and actually reduce the Christmas utility bill.
Q: Where do you keep it all?
Answer: The North Pole.
Q: How long does it take to put up and take down?
Answer: Lights, structures and decorations are set up separately and independently over the course of two months. Only after everything is setup is the display wired for power. This wiring activity takes thousands of feet of extension cords and 16-18 hours to complete. But none of it would be possible without the “man behind the garage door.” My good friend, neighbor, and licensed electrician ensures the display has plenty of power and that I do not burn my house down.
Take down requires several weeks.
I always attempt to add something new each year while making existing pieces better and more interesting. Components for next year’s display are already being planned and designed. Work on these will begin in April and will continue off and on through the summer right up to assembly time.
Q: Why do I do it?
Answer: The most simple answer is, “Because you came.”
If you have explored the display and the web notes, you have seen the connection to my history, working, building, and playing with my father, and the faith I have subtly intertwined into different components. But these are just wonderful bonuses.
The more complex answer begins with my wife. My friends and family know me as pragmatic and straight forward. Whimsical and complicated I am not. In a fit of annoyance, of which I probably deserved at the time, my wife exclaimed, “You are no fun!”
Equally annoyed at her assertion, I decided to show her fun. The Christmas display began. Hence, “No Fun Light Guy,” a phrase coined by my wife.
But over the years, the display became more than, “See, I am fun.”
Christmas is hope. It is the promise of something magical. It is your dreams being possible, if even for a moment. When you get out of your car, you absorb the lights and decorations. Your eyes widen. Your breathing slows. You relax. You become open to the hope and magic of Christmas that is the birth of Jesus. He is here sprinkled throughout the display. And for the moments you are here, you BELIEVE, you can hear the bell ring. Even if you have never heard the bell before, even if you are unable to explain what the ringing is, for this moment, your hopes and dreams are Christmas possible.
So the best answer really is the simplest answer after all. “I do this display because you came.”
Merry Christmas! May the hope and magic of Jesus Christ be with you all year long.
The No Fun Light Guy
Christmas Light Display 