Welcome to Christmas in Chino!
Hi! Thanks for stopping by. We created this website to help spread the Christmas spirit and to help make it easier for those in our local community to share our lights with their friends and family! Hopefully our lights will help get you in the Holiday spirit.
Have questions? We've got answers! :)
Below are answers to some of the most commonly asked questions we are asked.
1) How many lights are on the house
The last time we tried to estimate we stopped counting at 100,000 lights. If we had to guess, there is probably 130,000 lights on the house. Most of the lights are the smaller 100ct. mini-lights you can find at your local hardware store (we buy the Energy Saving version of these lights on sale after Christmas every year.
2) How many colors are there in the display?
Everything on the house turns 5 different colors. The five colors are White, Red, Green, Blue and Multi-colored. There is a sixth, warm gold/multi color set of strings on all 9 of the mini-trees that are in the front yard.
3) Are the lights special lights that can change 5 different colors?
No, these are your standard 100ct. mini lights that you can buy from Target, Home Depot, Lowes or Wal-mart for between $2.00 and $4.00 a string. We usually buy all of our lights at the after Christmas sales when they are 75% to 90% off. So we usually pay somerwhere between $0.20 and $0.50 a string of lights. We buy the 5 different colors (white, red, green, blue and multi-colored) all seperately, we then will lay out strings of each of the five different individual colors in the back yard and use zip-ties to attach them all together to make a "super-set" of lights that has 5 plugs on each end for each of the five different colors. Creating these "super-sets" is a bit time consuming, but it also makes it so much easier for us to put up and take down the lights since we are only putting up one "super-set" of lights instead of five individual sets of lights on everything.
4) How do you do it?
We use an old computer we have had for a few years that plays the music and talks to hardware that then tells the lights when to turn on and off, fade up or down, shimmer, twinkle, etc at specific times to make the lights look like they are "dancing to the music".
5) How do you get an fm radio station to play your Christmas music?
We actually use a small fcc compliant fm transmitter that has a range of about 100yds to broadcast the music to your cars. The fm transmitter is about twice the size of a cellphone and has an antenna that is about 18" tall.
6) How many songs do you have?
We have 7 songs that rotate throughout the night.
7) How long does it take to sequence each song?
It takes anywhere between 10-20 hours to sequence each song. We use a drag and drop type program that uses cells of time to sequence the lights to the music. Basically, every second of each song is broken down into 20ths of a second. If you multiply the number of seconds in a 3 minute song by 20 (for the breakdown of seconds) by the number of channels of light we can control you get a spreadsheet of over 1 million cells that you have to program and account for to finish just one song.
8) Why do you do it?
We love the spirit and idea of Christmas! It is so fun to see Children's eyes light up when they watch the lights "dance" and move to the music. It is just as much fun to see grown-ups eyes light up as they are taken back to a time when Christmas (and Christmas Lights) were a thing of magic for them when they were kids.
It does take a lot of work, effort, sacrifice and thought to put something like this on, but we like to think of it as a hobby. I figure that I could go golfing every weekend with friends and at the end of the year have a lighter wallet and a handicap I'm really proud of. Or, I could spend some free time and money throughout the year working on our Christmas display and at the end of the year, I get to put it up and then the entire community gets to enjoy it. To me, the latter option is much more rewarding! :)
9) Do you pay professionals to come in and set everything up?
No way! When I actually take a second to think about it, I think that I have actually touched and personally been responsible for putting up every single strand of lights on the house since we bought it 8 years ago. We do of course get help from friends and family (someone has to hold the other side of the light strings don't they)?
10) Do you do this for a living?
No, sorry. We do this for our house only and occasionally help friends and family with their displays...when they ask. :)
11) How much does it all cost?
We consider this a hobby and as with most hobbies, they do cost a bit of money. Since the display has been built up over multiple multiple years we are able to buy Christmas Lights on sale for as much as 90% off (typically we begin buying the stuff we need for the next year when it hits 50% to 75% off) from retailers that are clearancing out their seasonal items at the end of the year.
12) How much is your electric bill?
This one is easy to track as it shows up on our monthly electric bill (thanks Edison!). Our electric bill is about an extra $60 (as compared to the November and January bills) more for the month of December. Because the lights are never all on at any one time (they are kept off and then turned on to the beats or lyrics of a song) they aren't using muchelectricity. When they do finally turn on for the beats or lyrics of a song, not all of them are ever on at the same time, and the lights that are on are usually turned on for a fraction of a second to go with the beat of the song, then they are turned off again until the next time they are needed. We actually use to have higher electric bills in December years ago when we had a medium sized static (the lights are always on) display.
13) What a waste of energy! Don't you know we have global warming?!
We do care about our planet, our community, the environment and your opinion! However, we feel that the relatively small environmental impact the display makes is far outweighed by the number of people it can impact in a positive way!
14) What do your neighbors think?
First off, our neighbors are great! And even though we do try thank them as often as we see them, we would like to take this opportunity to thank them again for putting up with us and the traffic that's a result of the display. With our thanks to them out of the way, we do think that most of them, and their families, and their friends that come over do enjoy the lights. I do think that a lot of our neighbors are used to quite a bit of traffic since we have so many cars that travel up and down Monte Vista Ave all day long to avoid the stop lights on Central and Ramona Ave. Even though we do live in a great community and live on an absolutely great (and wide - with extra parking) street to handle quite a bit of traffic, I'm sure it can get a little frustrating at times when cars are parked and blocking their driveways. Even though there hasn't been any problems in the past, we hope that you as a citizen of our community and a watcher of the display will be courteous to our neighbors and their properties by not blocking or stopping in front of their driveways or leaving any of your trash anywhere on the street, sidewalks or on their properties.
I think (and hope) that if there is ever a problem or any frustrations that arise from the display, that they feel more than comfortable enough to come over (or send us an email with a way to contact them back - as with most everything, it's hard to address and make better anonymous concerns) and talk to us about their concerns so we can address them and work on alleviating those concerns. We do hope they understand that Monte Vista is already a busy street (with lots of commuter traffic) to live on and that any extra traffic created by the display is helping to spread Holiday Cheer and hopefully make our community an even better place to live in.
So again (in our opinion) our neighbors are the best and extremely understanding people! Some of them even come over and volunteer their time to help us put up the lights! If you are here watching the display or are just driving by and see them outside, please take a second to wave and thank them!
15) The house looks great, why aren't you in the news?
This question has come up multiple times a year every year we've done this and the answer has always been the same. We do this as a gift for our community and their friends and family. We don't do this for the publicity.
In our opinion, it doesn't do our community as much, if any, good if someone from LA sees our display on the nightly news and drives out to look at the display then leaves the community. Instead, if a neighbor tells family or friends about the display and then those friends and family come and see the display, it helps spread "Christmas Cheer" and has a positive impact on them (when they get to spend time with and talk to family and friends about the display) and also our community. Those friends, family and other visitors also help our community by patronizing local businesses that are close by.
We think that if our display is helping friends and family spend more time with each other and putting those of you in our community in a better mood and further into the Holiday spirit, we've done our job!
We hope this has helped you understand a bit more about the display and why we do it. If you have any questions, send us an email to info@ChristmasInChino.com and we'll try to answer it for you.
Have a Merry Christmas!