Katie and Dave's Christmas House - 2003

History:
Katie's family have gone Christmas Tree spotting every year, since she was a little girl. The Lloyd's come from far and wide where they have a competition driving around the streets of Ballarat claiming points for whoever spots different parts of a Christmas House first... Last year Katie and her parents dropped in at Dave's Christmas House on Christmas Eve and Dave managed to score a Christmas Kiss from Katie... Grrr. Who knew then, that 12 months later that the first Christmas Kiss would lead to Katie and Dave getting married... This is the first year that Dave and Katie have had a Christmas House together. Dave doesn't need to put up any mistletoe this year - Yay!!!

Rudolph:
Rudolph is a red nosed reindeer, who has a very shiny nose... Rudolph was made by Dave's mum many years ago and has followed Dave to each of the places he has lived in.


The House:
Most of the year round, the house sits quietly in a residential Ballarat side street. The only unusual features are some amateur radio antennas that Dave uses to talk to Santa Claus at the North Pole throughout the year.


The house...

The Transformation:
Preparations for the transformation from the House to the Christmas House started one fine day in early November and took several weekends to complete. Unlike previous years, there were some absolute bargains in the shops with different types of Christmas lights and decorations. To get Dave and Katie into the correct mindset they watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Dave took on the appearance of Clark Griswold in his quest for lighting supremacy... In hindsight, Katie was just as bad...

Click on images to enlarge


Dave and Katie's Christmas House - 2003


Timing:
All of the lights are on digital timers, synchronised to within a second. They are programmed to switch on at 8:45PM and off again at 11:59PM. We offer our apologies to anyone in the Ballarat area that suffers from power fluctuations during this time...

Aunt Bethany: Is your house on fire, Clark?
Clark Griswold: No, Aunt Bethany, those are the christmas lights.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Inside:
Dave didn't have a Christmas Tree and Katie's looked more like a Bonsai tree, so they decided that they needed a new tree... Having studied National Lampoons Christmas Vacation in detail, they understood that you need the biggest tree possible. By doing so, you can use the ceiling to help stabilise it... Note to new tree buyers: Make sure that when you get a new tree that it will actually fit in the car...

General Statistics:
For the geeks, you will be pleased to know the following statistics (not including the Rope Christmas Tree):

General Statistics:
  • 30m Clear Icycle Lights
  • 6m Blue Icycle Lights (out the back)
  • 26m Fairy Lights
  • 9m Twinkly Coloured Lights
  • 27m Animated Green Rope Lights
  • 18m Static Red Rope Lights
  • 8ft high Santa
  • 5ft high Frosty the Snowman
  • 2 x Star Nets
  • 2 x Bush Nets
  • 2 x Reindeer
  • 18 x 240VAC power points
  • 3 x 240VAC digital timers

The Rope Christmas Tree:
In a final act of lighting supremacy / obsession, or "indulgence" as our friend Sarah calls it for 2003, a Rope Christmas Tree was added to the front yard. Katie's dad, Ian, helped transport the bits and weld the star that we made. We had to make the star, as we couldn't find a star big enough to do justice to the rope tree.

The star is quite visible some 500m away. The only minor distraction is the nearby street light, but fortunately the rope tree is taller and beacons above it...

This was a high risk project as there are underground 240V power, water, gas, and telephone services in the area where Dave had to belt the star pickets into the ground. Dave made sure Katie wasn't home when he did this, just in case something went wrong...

Contrary to a number of comments from Dave's friends, there are no radio antennas built into the rope tree - Maybe next year...

The first night we switched it on, neighbours swarmed from everywhere and congregated on our front lawn just watching it in awe. It was a very funny sight.


Rope Christmas Tree Statistics:
  • 7.5m (24 feet 6 inches) total height
  • 4m Diamater at Base
  • Star - 1.1m Wide and 1m High
  • 9m Animated Yellow Rope Lights (Star and Mast)
  • 27m Static Red Rope Lights
  • 18m Animated Green Rope Lights
  • 6 x Guy Wires @ 60 degree spacing (only 5 lit as all stores in Ballarat and the surrounding area had run out of animated green rope lights - Doh!)
  • 6 x 240VAC power points
  • 203 Cable Ties...

At Home With The Claus':
Santa and Mrs Claus dropped in for a glass of milk and to eat some cookies while checking out the new Christmas Tree. They gave the Christmas Tree the big thumbs up of approval... Santa and Mrs Claus have promissed to drop by on most weekends to hand out lollies to all the boys and girls. Note: Have you ever seen a sexier Mrs Claus? Grrr...


Santa and Mrs Claus with Yo Yo Tilson.

Next Year:
Plans are already underway for next year. The main emphasis will be on:

We hope you've enjoyed looking at our Christmas House and have a Merry Christmas...
Katie, Dave and Yo Yo

E-mail: dave@daves-portal.com
Last Updated: 29th November, 2003.