fashioned4HisGlory: Christmas

Christmas was spent with my husband's family in the sunny south. We traveled with Merv's brothers and family and we drove at night. It's a wonderful way to avoid a lot of traffic, but the worst part is when the drivers fight sleep. Merv drove the entire way down. But his brothers switched on and off in the other vehicle which was so nice.

We arrived on Thursday, the morning before Christmas. We ate a hearty breakfast at Mom and Dad's house. Christmas eve we went to this church to see the light display. We had seen it several years earlier where it was at an individual's house. Since then, the set has been moved to this church.

I wish I knew more about my camera to know how to shoot night scenes because this was definately worth seeing.

There are more than 400,000 lights in the display.

75 people plus men, women, and children helped to set up the display which takes about six weeks although they work on some things throughout the year.

How does it work? A midi sequencer reads a computer generated program, which sends signals to a 239 relay located in eight panels scattered around the property. There are more than eight miles of wire on the ground to distribute over 250 amps of electric current.

This was the nativity scene and only once during the presentation were the characters on the roof lit up.

There are 430 trees including those inside the church.

This was the second year the church did the display. The computer display was started by Chuck and Joanne Pierson 11 years ago.

Last year, the electric bill for December was $1,000 extra.

This girl inside the gazebo rang the bell in the song, "Ring the Bells." The words are listed in the brochure.

The drum opened and showed a few little ones while the song "The Drummer Boy" was played.

Sometimes the lights were seen in all kinds of different colors next in only green, white, blue, red, purple, and yellow flashing so fast it about made your eyes go funny. It's a work of art!

The church had refreshments of cookies and hot chocolate with peppermint candy canes.

We missed the services that the church held. I wish so bad we would have known about it. They had 3-4 services starting at the top of the hour. But I'm glad Merv's uncle got to go. He said it was a neat service and they shared an excellent short sermon. We heard one of Chris Tomlin's new Christmas songs while we were getting our refreshments and the folks were being dismissed.