For the 2004 season, we added a splash of bright color to the front of our display.  This is provided by 24 rope light “mini trees”.

The frames of these trees are actually tomato cages.  We inverted them, soldered the tops together at the top to make the tree shape, and then added the rope light.

There are 12 red and 12 green trees, and they spread out across the front of our display, about 8 feet apart (breaking at the driveway).

Each tree is on it’s own computer-controlled circuit, and along with many item
s in our display, is synchronized to music.  This gives us individual control of each tree, and it can be switched on or off, or dimmed up or down as desired.  We’re really pleased with the effect and color these trees add to the display.

In 2004, each of the green trees was topped with a mini-strobe light, which provided some “sparkle” at certain places in the music.  Unfortunately, the effect wasn’t as good as we had hoped for, being very spread out and having a lot of ambient light taking away from it.  So for 2006, we moved them to be part of our Mega Tree, where they are closer together and the area can be darkened (by dimming down the tree and nearby lights) to enhance the effect..

For the 2011 season, we completely redid all of the mini-trees, which had given us 7 great years of service.  The old rope was removed from the cages, and any damage to the cages was repaired.  Then new, commercial-grade LED rope light was added back to the cages.  The new LED rope uses a tiny fraction of the power of the old incandescent rope light, and has a much richer color.