Teardown is going well considering how cold it's been over the past couple weeks. Most of the wiring has been picked up and packed away and all of the smaller items have also been packed away. The large trees are the only things left in the yard and those will be taken down once we have a couple sunny, 35F-40F days.

PLEASE NOTE... THERE WILL NOT BE A 2018 DISPLAY HERE AT OUR HOME! Traffic(ie dumb people) was too much for us this year and we can't see a way around it. We are hopeful to have another site for the display in the future and if/when we find one we'll be sure to post here. Have a Happy New Year!

No lights tonight due to how wet everything is. And note, Christmas Eve the lights will be delayed until after 9pm or NOT TURNED ON AT ALL! This is our standard operating procedure for Christmas Eve since we do family stuff(like normal people do!) Hopefully we'll be back Christmas night...

Have a Merry Christmas!

I was going to cancel the lights tonight due to aggravation with people in general(parking in road with lights off, parking in road with lights on, people asking to park in the driveway while the "NO LIGHTS" announcement is playing, etc) but I figure I'll just play one song over and over and over again so people can enjoy one and move on.

While I personally love watching the lights, I no longer have the urge to deal with people. This will almost definitely be our last year. The fun for me is gone when you can't count on people using their own heads to be safe out there. There is also an air of entitlement that some people have and it's a complete turn off to me. I think people forget this is a house that people live in and not a business that caters to customers.

Since I love Christmas lights I will probably search for a new location to eventually do the lights but I feel a break in 2018 will be well deserved. It's been fun(sometimes) but I think it's time to move on.

Just a heads up that there will only be one or two songs playing tonight. Traffic was horrible towards the start of the lights so just to keep things moving this is what is happening. Weeknights are less busy so more songs play... usually. LOL.

We will only be playing a couple songs tonight if traffic gets out of hand. Lights will be on from 7pm until 11pm. Enjoy!

Lights will be on from 6:30pm to 10:00pm tonight with the following playlist... Amazing Grace, Frosty the Snowman, Christmas Time, Jingle Bells Bass, Winter Wonderland, Do You Hear What I Hear, Deck the Halls and Wizards in Winter.

There is also a new camera for the live feed being used tonight and it is MUCH better! Be sure to check it out!

The lights will be on from 6:30pm to 11:00pm tonight with a six song rotation. The songs are Winter Wonderland, Hot Chocolate, Deck the Halls, Jingle Bells Bass, Do You Hear What I Hear and Wizards in Winter.

We will also be turning off the lights for a bit when the traffic gets backed up in the road. Unfortunately people have been doing dumb things this year(more so than in years past) so hopefully this will help clear things out when needed.

As you may have guessed, the increased traffic is why our Facebooks page has been taken down. As far as we can guess, there's been too much sharing this year which shows people don't read our pleas to not do that. Wish we had a parking lot for folks to park but we don't.

Lights are on and will be on until 11:00pm tonight. Sorry for the delay in the start... gotta love Windows updates!

Lights will be back on tonight from 7pm until 10pm.

NO LIGHTS TONIGHT DUE TO THE RAIN! We'll try again tomorrow.

Due to the higher than forecast winds, the two large trees have been collapsed down as a precaution. Also, the live camera feed has the shakes... again due to the wind.

Since the weather cooperated last night I took some video of the show from a very different perspective. Then at 4am this morning, when I couldn't sleep, I did some video editting and added audio files. Finally at about 8am I created the Youtube playlist below...

2017 MaineLights.org Videos

And as always, we try to stream the Christmas lights every evening we run them here...

http://www.youtube.com/user/adventurevision/live

ENJOY!!!

Lighting season officially kicked off last night!

There are still a couple gremlins to work out but overall everything has been placed and wired. Every year it seems the aches and pains increase during setup but once I sit out in the driveway and take it all in... worth it!

Setup is going well. Opening night on December 1st should definitely be a go!

If you plan to stop by to enjoy the lights we ask that you remember East Maine Road can be a very busy road at times and completely dead at others. The suggested speed limit is 35MPH over the crest of the hill(thanks Judge! ) but people do not seem to follow that suggestion. Feel free to pull into our driveway to enjoy the lights! Two cars can pull in side-by-side and if you go far enough another two can pull in behind you.

PLEASE TAKE NOTE: The lights will be turned off if the traffic gets out of hand! Unfortunately some people travel well over the cautionary speed limit of 35MPH over the crest of the hill so... DO NOT STOP IN THE ROAD!!! PLEASE PULL INTO OUR DRIVEWAY and if there is not room consider stopping by later. If you have tried a few times and just can't get in, send us an email and we'll make arrangements for you!

(If you feel you must stop on the road, the uphill side across from the house almost has a shoulder... almost! Just PLEASE watch out for the ditch!)

One more note about the ditches, if you are pulling over to let someone pass, be careful... once we get snow up here the ditches will magically disappear underneath the plowed snow. Only problem is they haven't really dissappeared and you'll be needing a tow.

We have always enjoyed decorating the house for Christmas and in 2007 we had a display with about 4,000 Christmas lights and 13 inflatable.

2008 was the first year that we had the display synchronized to music broadcast on 94.9 FM radio via a low-powered FM transmitter. There were around 45,000 computer controlled lights with Silver, Gold, and Red being the primary colors. In all, we could control 176 individual channels of lighting. The inspiration for the 2008 display was Richard Holdman of Utah. Our whole family enjoyed his display the previous three years and our display tries to capture his style of synchronized lighting(and boy does he have style!).

Some items of interest in 2008 were a 21 foot Mega-Tree with 4,800 lights, four 10 foot animated arches with 1,700 dancing lights each, and a 12 foot tree with 4,800 lights.

In 2009, we kept everything from 2008 and added another 10,000 - 15,000 lights and 80 more lighting channels. We also added two more snowflake trails on the house, four "jumping" arches in the yard, and doubled the lights on the two smaller 10' trees.

The display in 2010 was very similar to 2009. The 21' mega-tree was upgraded from 4,800 lights to 9,600 lights as well as some other upgrades. The blowups also made a comeback and they were a huge hit.

In 2011 we reduced the amount of lights to ~50,000 and we also reduced the time the display is on. The previous year was a bit much for us and instead of taking the year off, we decided to try for a little less "show".

For 2012 thru 2015 we were back to around 75,000-90,000 lights and the display hours were reduced to 7pm to 10:00pm weekdays and 6:30pm to 11:00pm on the weekends.

2016 was another stepping stone year in that we added blue LEDs to EVERYTHING and we also added a 4'x16' RGB display. The year for us started in August and continued thru January. This was a busy, BUSY year!

Since 2016 was sooo busy... 2017 is just a re-boot of 2016 with only some minor improvements. The big thing for this year so far has been the elimation of the Facebooks page. It seems to have been shared way too much making traffic management an issue... AGAIN. Who knows if 2018 will happen... we may skip it just to take a needed break and enjoy December!