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My dad and I have been decorating ever since I was little. (I am now 19 years old) In 2004, we moved into a new home with a lot more land than our previous city lot in Chicago. This gave us a TON of space to express ourselves with Christmas decorations and lights. And we did just that our first four Christmas' at the new home. Even though our display consists of all static lighting, everyone still enjoys every second of it. We would like to go at least half computer controlled for Christmas 2009. Don't ask how much it all costs because we have no idea and probably wouldn't want to know. LOL! We have a room in the basement that's about 20' x 20' where we store the bulk of the Christmas decorations and lights. Every single year we try to make it bigger and better. In 2006, our house was on NBC Channel 5 News for one of the best decorated in the Chicago suburbs.
 
Here's some information on what makes it all happen. THE ELECTRICITY!!! We had an electrician come in before the 2006 Christmas season to install four dedicated 20 amp circuit breakers outside. Boy, does this come in handy! I remember during the 2005 Christmas season when we were limited to only two outdoor outlets that were shared with inside amenities. Kept on blowing the circuit breakers because of overloading the circuit. Told the family, "Don't turn on the big screen TV because the circuit breaker will blow." HAHA! So we have the four dedicated 20 amp outlets, the 20 amp swimming pool outlet (that we use for the Christmas display in the offseason), and three 20 amp outlets that are shared with amenities inside. That's 8 total outlets! How do we turn the display on and off every night? We use a Z-Wave computer controlled home automation program to do it along with 8 Z-Wave Intermatic HomeSettings outdoor timer modules and 5 Z-Wave Intermatic HomeSettings indoor appliance modules. I program the on and off times into the computer software and all 8 outdoor modules and 5 indoor modules go on and off at the exact same time, every single night. Much easier than having separate timers like we did during the 2005 season. Please send us an e-mail with your questions, comments, or suggestions via the "Contact Us" page. Thanks!
 
 
The two holiday decorators,
-Matt Phillips
-Rich Phillips