Christmas 2020 build schedule

This being stuck at home thing has really thrown me off my usual process of creating my build plan. Usually I think about what I want to do, order the pieces when the LOR summer sale is on, then build my work back plan once I know what I am doing.

Because of the quarantine I’ve had a little more time on my hands and a couple of sleepless nights had me surfing HolidayCoro which resulted in several of impulse purchases to do some experimenting with. so what has happened is I’ve added way more props than I usually do. Now that I’ve finished my power and network upgrade I need to start planning some of these DIY projects.

Every year my schedule begins Thanksgiving (Canadian) weekend, cleaning up the yard for winter and turning around the garage; storing the car and getting out the lights as well as general clean up. This year thanksgiving falls early which gives me 8 weeks of building until the light up on Nov 28th. Even with this extended schedule it looks like I’ll have a lot to do each week to get to complete. One of my goals when building the schedule is to get all the items I cannot reach from my step ladder up by the weekend before Halloween to avoid challenges like I had in 2017.

Group	Prop	11-Oct	18-Oct	25-Oct	01-Nov	08-Nov	15-Nov	22-Nov	29-Nov
Arches	Arches Prototype	In Progress
Arches	Build Arches	To Do
Candy Canes	Assemble Candy Canes	To Do
Curtain Lights	Display Upper Curtains	To Do
Curtain Lights	Seal curtain Lights	To Do
Curtain Lights	Create Mounting	To Do
House LED	Upper Icicles R-LW	To Do
House RGB	Build Garage Outline Mounting	To Do
House RGB	Upper Roof-RGB	To Do
House RGB	Right Upper-RGB	To Do
House RGB	Left Upper-RGB	To Do
North Poles	Build Prototype	To Do
North Poles	Buid Poles	To Do
Stockings	Assemble stockings	To Do
Stockings	Create Mounting	To Do
House RGB	Briks Window -RGB		To Do
House RGB	Iains Window-RGB		To Do
House RGB	Garage Pitch-RGB		To Do
House RGB	Living Room Pitch-RGB		To Do
Stockings	Display Stockings		To Do
Candy Canes	Add Ground Stakes			To Do
House LED	Garage Outline-LW			To Do
House LED	Front Door-LW			To Do
House RGB	Garage – RGB			To Do
House RGB	Living Room Window-RGB			To Do
North Poles	Add Ground Stakes			To Do
Arches	Arches Ground Stakes				To Do
Border Panels	Insert Ground Stakes				To Do
House LED	House Garage Globes-LW				To Do
House LED	House Snowflakes-LW				To Do
Trees	Tree Burst				To Do
Yard	Santa & Elves Ground Stakes				To Do
Trees	Spruce Net Lights -LW					To Do
Trees	Spruce -RGB					To Do
Yard	Pixel Tree-RGB					To Do
Yard	Jim Border R-IM					To Do
Yard	Frank BorderL-IM					To Do
Curtain Lights	Display Lower Curtains						To Do
Mini Trees	Mini Tree Display						To Do
Trim	Wreath R-LW						To Do
Trim	Wreath L-LW						To Do
Yard	Ground Accents						To Do
Arches	Display Arches							To Do
Candy Canes	Display Candy Canes							To Do
North Poles	Display Poles							To Do
Trim	Nutcracker							To Do
Trim	Left Candle							To Do
Yard	Pixel Panels							To Do
Yard	Candy Canes							To Do
Yard	Floodlight Right RGB							To Do
Yard	Floodlight Left-RGB							To Do
Yard	Right Candle							To Do
Fence	Side Gate Banner								To Do
Fence	Side Gate Flood								To Do
Fence	Side Fence Banner								To Do
Fence	Side Fence Flood								To Do
Trim	Garage Door Cover								To Do
Yard	Santa Cutout + Flood								To Do
Yard	Elves Cutout + Flood								To Do
	Count	15	5	6	6	5	5	10	7

The other thing I have started early is converting my sequences to this years layout. I usually start this Labour Day long weekend as that is usually after I have locked in my order and layout. This year I’ve gotten a head start. Hopefully this gives me time to improve (or recreate) some of the older sequences that have been transitioning from my first LOR years with only LEDs

Category	Sequence	Due	Status
Now	A Spaceman Came Travelling	28-Jun	Complete
Twisted	I’ll Be Home for Christmas	28-Jun	Complete
Now	Band Aid	05-Jul	Complete
Misc	Jingle Bells	05-Jul	Complete
Now	Bing Crosby : “White Christmas”	12-Jul	Complete
Kids	Jingle Bells Batman Smells	12-Jul	Complete
TSO	Christmas Cannon Rock	19-Jul	Complete
Kids	Jingle Jingle Jingle	19-Jul	Add Singing Faces
TSO	Christmas in Sarejavo	26-Jul	Complete
Now	John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band : “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”	26-Jul	Complete
Misc	Christmas Vacation	02-Aug	Complete
Now	Johnny Mathis : “When a Child Is Born (Soleado)”	02-Aug	Complete
Misc	Christmas Vacation Intro	09-Aug	Complete
Now	Jona Lewie : “Stop The Cavalry”	09-Aug	Complete
Twisted	Deck the Halls	16-Aug	Convert
Kids	Kidnap the Santy Claus	16-Aug	Create
Kids	Domenick The Italian Christmas Donkey	23-Aug	Convert
Now	Last Christmas	23-Aug	Convert
Now	Elton John : “Step Into Christmas”	30-Aug	Convert
Kids	LET IT GO	30-Aug	Convert
Metal	Father Christmas	06-Sep	Create
Misc	Let it Snow	06-Sep	Convert
Misc	Rudolph	06-Sep	Create
Kids	Frosty the snowman	13-Sep	Convert
Twisted	Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow	13-Sep	Convert
KIds	Rudolph the red nosed reindeer	13-Sep	Convert
Now	Gary Glitter : “Another Rock n’ Roll Christmas”	20-Sep	Convert
Misc	Lets Not go Shopping	20-Sep	Convert
Misc	Santa Claus is coming to town	20-Sep	Convert
Misc	God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen	27-Sep	Convert
Misc	Little Drummer Boy	27-Sep	Convert
Now	Shakin’ Stevens : “Blue Christmas”	27-Sep	Convert
Twisted	Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas	04-Oct	Convert
Kids	Making Christmas	04-Oct	Create
Twisted	Silver Bells	04-Oct	Convert
Twisted	Heavy Metal Christmas (The Twelve Days of Christmas)	11-Oct	Convert
Metal	Merry Axe-mas	11-Oct	Convert
Kids	Snoopy’s Christmas	11-Oct	Convert
Misc	Here comes Santa Claus	18-Oct	Convert
Now	Merry Xmas Everybody	18-Oct	Convert
Now	The Beach Boys : “Little Saint Nick”	18-Oct	Convert
Now	Mike Oldfield : “In Dulce Jubilo”	25-Oct	Convert
Twisted	The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)	25-Oct	Convert
Misc	Hey, COme look at my lights	25-Oct	Create
Kids	Hot Chocolate	01-Nov	Convert
Metal	Mistress For Christmas	01-Nov	Convert
Misc	Twas the Night before Christmas	01-Nov	Convert
Kids	I Am The Grinch	08-Nov	Convert
Now	Mud : “Lonely This Christmas”	08-Nov	Convert
Twisted	White Christmas	08-Nov	Convert
Now	I Believe in Father Christmas	15-Nov	Convert
Twisted	Oh Come All Ye Faithful	15-Nov	Convert
TSO	Wizards in Winter	15-Nov	Convert
Twisted	I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus	22-Nov	Convert
Now	Paul McCartney : “Wonderful Christmastime”	22-Nov	Convert
Kids	Youre a mean one Mr Grinch	22-Nov	Convert
Now	I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday	29-Nov	Convert
Now	Queen : “Thank God It’s Christmas”	29-Nov	Convert

Overall Progress is looking good:

	This week				To date
	Due	Complete	%		Due	Complete	%	Run Time
Build	0	0	100.00%		0	0	100%
Sequences	2	2	100.00%		8	13	163%	0:41:27

One other project I took on was building a retaining wall around my flower bed as well as removing some of the trees and shrubs in it. The final step of this project was adding some lights. The Lights are the LOR Cosmic Colour Ribbons I have on my ash tree last season. They are mounted to the underside of the wall using HolidayCoro Pixel Strip Mounting Hardware Base + Diffuser Cover – 39″ / ~1 Meter Length. The light controllers I am using are NODEMCU boards running WLED Firmware that I built myself. The lights are scheduled through an Alexa routine to turn on 60 mins before sunset and turn off at sunrise. This was another fun little quarantine project to curb the monotony of being at home. I can also unplug the NodeMCU controllers and plug in my LOR ones at Christmas time to incorporate these lights into my Christmas display.

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I also scored some oldschool plywood characters to incorporate into the display. One of our neighbors is moving and had these at the end of their driveway with a free sign on them.

The kids were real excited to tell me about it and we quickly grabbed them. I love these old school props and have been looking for or thinking about building some for a while, this was a lucky addition. I also ordered a couple of HolidayCoro 10 Watt RGB SMART PIXEL Flood Light with Included Ground Stake V3 to light them up. now I just need to figure where I am putting them in my display.