Suits me.

In our little town of Willamina, Oregon, we have a Lighted Christmas Parade every year. Last year, there were about 6 entries with one of them being a "Cinderella" type coach complete with princess. We were there watching it and of course, we were lit up with a portable power supply and a few hundred LED lights. I had thought we could enter it and maybe win a prize that we could donate back to the cause in the form of food for the food-bank. The first plan was to decorate our car (a Ford Taurus) with a white lacy shroud and Santa with reindeer or something to that effect. But now, a smaller and redefined plan has been devised.

And here it is..... The Mobile Light Suit!

Six channels of LEDs with a total of 1000 lights in a rainbow of colors.It will be really cold so the Camo suit will keep me warm. Complete with Christmas music, it plays 20 tunes really loud. Total weight of the suit is around 30 pounds. Total cost of the suit was around 30 dollars due to buying it all secondhand. Sometimes your hobby carries you away instead of the other way around.

Our dog, Penny is a 3/4 Dachshund 1/4 Pomeranian and such a sweet and obviously, a tolerant patient soul because she put up with the fitting and a bit of training but we knew she would do anything to get a "One" (that's her word for a treat of any kind.) She will be walking alongside of me in the parade in her cute Santa Skirt that my wife made for her. Its stocked with 35 LED lights and will use a dark green extension cord for a leash. She knows something's up but not sure what it is. Maybe it will get her another "One"

And so it begins....

The turkey has been eaten, the last of the pumpkin pie gone and the parade is over, now the start of the CHRISTMAS season has begun! You won't find me at the sales or watching the game, instead I will be outside, possibly in the pouring rain, setting up our ever-increasing light display. With a lot of new items, the old ones and some that were handmade or remade by us to set up, we will be very busy in the next few days. Our show starts on the 10th with testing starting before that. Hopefully, everything will go right and soon the brilliance of lights will bring out the smiles and the oooh aahhs. Some of the lights are being replaced with LEDs.Wish us luck, we will need it.

Stop to think

Halloween is over and Thanksgiving is soon to come. Food is a big part of the holidays and most of us will be setting down with friends and family to partake in the wintertime feasts. Some people aren't so lucky and will have to go to local foodbanks just to get food for regular meals, much less holiday feasts. We at TimberTownChristmas are committed to raising food for the foodbanks in our area. We tried to include the collecting of food in our Halloween show but nobody gave any. Actually, this is not true. A man showed up on our porch and was asking for food. Turned out, he was also collecting food for the same foodbank we collect for. What a coincidence! When he heard we had not collected anything, he gave us some of his! No loss there, it will end up in the same place. Its a joke, right? Nope. Food donations are needed at all times of the year just so some families can have enough for basic nutrition. It doesn't take much from everybody if they just give a can or two each. Please give to your local foodbank when you can. It will make you feel great!  Meanwhile.....
Its time to finalize the Christmas Show layout and do routine checking of the light elements. Hopefully, some of the new elements will be put out to see if they will blend in with the show. Some new icicles will adorn the roofline and our herd of reindeer has grown to a total of 14. As the show increases in size, the more popular it becomes and there are a lot of people that can't wait to see it.We will have to be on our top game to wow the crowd. Good luck to us and happy holidays to you.

Practice makes perfect.

Once again its Halloween and once again, its time for the craziness to start. Confined to the porch and a section of the yard in front of it, we built a nice Halloween display. Using only 32 of 128 channels possible, we created a 10 foot high screen complete with a Jack o' lantern face. Some of last year's items didn't make it into the show due to electrical failure (water and electricity still don't mix) but we still continued. On with the show! Each cycle is about 28 minutes long and there will be 8 shows per night so come on down and check it out! Details of the show can be found on the link to the right >--->

On the Run

During the 4th of July, in our town of Willamina, Oregon, the Friends of the Willamina Library has a 5K Run. The course loops around the local fishing pond and up the hill around the High School. A lot of runners turned out and amazingly, the first to cross the finish line did the route in about 15 minutes! This was the 4th annual Run and Timbertown Christmas sponsored a bit of it. We also donated some of our time as we are a part of The Friends of the Willamina Library group as well. Double duty? All in all, it was a great day for both of the charities. Want to learn more about the Friends? Check out the Our Charities page to the right of this >>------>

On your Marks, Get set, Go!

Once more it is time to start thinking about what your display will look like this year. During the remainder of the time til Christmas, there is a ton of work to be done. Rechecking all the lights in storage and fixing up new items from all the places we buy them from like yard sales, thrift stores and even from people that donate to us will be the place to start for us. This being our 3rd year for a computer-controlled system, we are still pleased with the way it operates. Some additions to the system will be tested and hopefully adding more versatility to the overall look of the display. This year we will be collecting food once again for the local food bank. Hopefully, we will beat last year's total if we can get more sponsorship and spread the word earlier. If you can help out or if you have questions, let us know by emailing us. As always, we want to help our community by letting them see our pretty display and getting the word out that we can help others when they need it the most.

Food For Thought

Food collected and donated to the Grandsherimina Foodbank.
Total of 142 Lbs.

Each year, a lot of food gets donated to local foodbanks during the holidays. It brings comfort and warm feelings for those who donated and for those receiving the food. We at Timbertownchristmas encourage and challenge everyone to donate what they can to local foodbanks, for doing so will help the less fortunate with basic needs. It is also our belief that it doesn't have to be the holidays to donate food as food is needed all year long. Help out where and what you can, it will make you feel good inside. Helping others is helping ourselves and we all need it.
Timbertownchristmas wishes you and yours, Happy Holidays!