Lee Family Lights

Lee Family Lights We're Having A Very Merry Christmas in Lacey, WA

2008 Display Information…

Author: Ken | Filed under: Projects Monday Oct 27,2008

Here is some info on how our display is shaping up for this year:

  • Lights come on at 5pm on Thanksgiving night
  • Lights will be on from November 27, 2008 – January 1, 2009
  • Shows will run every night from 5pm-10pm Sunday – Thursday and 5pm-11pm Friday & Saturday
  • We’ll have over 20,000+ lights this year
  • We have 112 animation channels
  • 11 wire frame rope light snow flakes
  • 2 6 foot wire twig trees
  • 12 mini trees
  • We’ll be broadcasting our music on 107.5fm, while there is no show, we’ll still be playing great Christmas music.
  • We’ll start hanging lights no later than November 1st, weather permitting.

Voiceovers courtesy of The Demented Elf…

Author: Ken | Filed under: Misc Saturday Oct 25,2008

This year we decided it was time to use some voiceovers in our show and we chose the best in the business, The Demented Elf. This guy is simply amazing! If you had your volume up when you got to our site you heard our preshow voiceover that we will be playing on our radio station, 107.5fm Lee Family Radio starting November 1st. We have several others and ever couple days we’ll share another one with ya.


Tacoma Holiday Food & Gift Show…

Author: Ken | Filed under: Events Friday Oct 24,2008

This afternoon my wife, my Mom and I all went to Tacoma to the Tacoma Dome for the Holiday Food & Gift Show. I had never been to this show but every year my wife and I talk about wanting to go. This year she had the Friday of the show off, so we decided to do it.

It was pretty cool. They had lots of neat stuff but it was all so expensive… at least to me it was. I saw tons of people walking around with bags filled with goodies they had bought… who says we’re in a recession?!? It did cost like $10/person to get in as well as $8 for parking, so maybe that’s why I had nothing left to buy anything with, huh?

I did try some fudge though… which was the last thing I needed, honestly! However, I was getting my Mom some sugar free chocolate fudge with walnuts in it and I noticed some Eggnog Fudge and I HAD to try that! I have never seen eggnog fudge before and it ended up being either one of the greatest fudges I have ever tried or one of my worst nightmares… maybe both! I must say that I loved it and savored every bite… but now I need to make some. So see, it’s both. 🙂 I will be making some of that soon!

One of the cooler parts of the show, to me any how, was the decorations. Everything was so Christmas-y. They even had a few really cool lighted items you could buy. They were all wire frame, looked awesome, but cost way too much! I loved the wire frame lighted garland spiral trees… but the medium sized ones were $100!! I am fairly certain if I had the time and $$ for materials that we could build them for much, much less. There is picture below of a couple of them in different sizes.

Gotta say also that I got to see Karolyn Grimes there as well. If you don’t know who she is the one who at the age of 6, in 1946, played the role of Zuzu Bailey in “It’s A Wonderful Life”. She is now 68 and it must have been a wonderful life cause her acting career didn’t go anywhere…her last movie credit is from 1952, when she was 12… but she sure has milked this movie for everything she can and I think that is just awesome! I love “It’s A Wonderful Life” as my wife and I watch it every holiday season at least once.



We Got Some Sequencing Going On…

Author: Ken | Filed under: Lights Tuesday Oct 21,2008

Sneek Peek for ya…


Building Mini Trees…

Author: Ken | Filed under: Lights, Projects Monday Oct 20,2008

So I stopped by Michael’s on Saturday and picked up a few 30 inch wire easels and got to work on making some Mini Tress. Each tree will have 210 lights, that’s 3 strings of 70 LED’s, which are super bright, each string a different color, Red, Green and White. The plan is to have 12 of these babies dancing back and forth on top of the rock wall. So far I have 3 done, so I best get busy on the next 9! 🙂

Here is a quick clip from my phone that shows the 3 in “Random Shimmer” mode.


We’ve got lights!

Author: Ken | Filed under: Lights Tuesday Oct 14,2008

So after a few days of spraying primer, paint and then wrapping rope lights on the finished frame… we’ve got lights! The video below was taken, again, by my cell phone. While not that greatest, I think it shows enough to see how they turned out and a few things we can do with them 🙂 They will go up on the roof, so as dark as it is up there at night, I think they should look wicked cool… or at least I hope!!


48 more days…

Author: Ken | Filed under: Misc Friday Oct 10,2008

There are 48 days until Thanksgiving!! 48 days from RIGHT NOW I will be lighting our Christmas lights show for the first time this year. There are only 48 more days until then!! Holy cow where has the time gone! I have so much to do but I don’t know what all I can do right now. I know I have to finish the snowflakes, finish the Merry Christmas sign (just have the red M left still), I have to work on finishing sequences and getting the channels all figured out… but before I can do that I have to figure out what all I do have and what I will be able to use and where it is all going. I think I have most of the planning done (the usual roof line, icicle lights, lights around the windows, the mini trees, bushes and so on). I still have to make the Bethleham Star as well… maybe I can do that this week.

47 days, 23 hours and 52 minutes to go…


More Snowflakes..

Author: Ken | Filed under: Lights Monday Oct 6,2008

So yesterday I sprayed some primer on the snowflakes and then I painted them and after a couple coats, they looked pretty good black. Today I took the time to figure out how to put the rope lights on them. The 1st one took me just over an hour to do. Between learning how to do it and working with zip ties for the first time, it was a great learning process. Each of the next 2 I was able to do in about 40 minutes. Getting a bit faster. I think the end result looks pretty darn good. Thanks again to my elves Bob & Mike for their help putting the frames together.

Since the above pic was taken I have completed these 2, plus the other 1 not shown, by putting black tape around the “tail” so those last few lights cant be seen. Looks much better that way.

If you want to make your own here is where I got the directions on how to make mine: Rope Light Snowflakes


Messing Around With Halloween Lights…

Author: Ken | Filed under: Misc Saturday Oct 4,2008

So this year I decided to plug our Halloween lights into a controller and write a quick and easy sequence. It’s nothing big, but its kinda cool. The following clip is just 1 small segment of the lights. The video was taken with my cell phone, so it’s not the greatest…


I See Snowflakes…

Author: Ken | Filed under: Lights, Projects Friday Oct 3,2008

Ok, so maybe it’s not the white kind that fall from the sky, but they are still snowflakes. Spent several hours in the workshop with a couple of my elves today (Mike & Bob) putting together some rope light snowflakes. We had no idea what we were really doing to begin with but with some trial an error and we figured it out. We got one frame built but the parts cut from the steel strip for another 9. Add to that we have about 1/2 the welding done, which Mike has done all on his own (Thank you!), it shouldn’t take but 2-3 more hours to complete the other 9 for a total of 10 frames (which includes taking a wire brush to them to clean them up). Then I will need to primer them and spray paint them. Once that is done it will be time to zip tie the rope lights on. I hope to have it all done by next weekend.

Here are a few pix of my elves hard at work:


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