2003 was a major year for our display, as it was our first year with computerizing the lights and synchronizing them to music. We were the first display in the Twin Cities to do this, and the only one for several years.
For this initial year we had 40 computer controlled channels. 32 of them were used on our Mega Tree. (A bit of trivia: Mega-tree is now a standard term for these trees among decorators. Tim believes he originated the term here on PlymouthLights.com, and on the Planet Christmas discussion forums). The original tree was made up of 4600 lights in three colors, a strobe light, and a star. This allowed the tree to change colors, spin around, and do many visual effects, all synchronized to music.
We acquired a large “Remember Jesus” sign from a decorating friend in Ohio, and it used 2 computer-controlled channels. To round out the 40 channels, we wired our icicle lights to use 4 channels so they can chase around the house, and had two rows of lighted candy canes flanking the driveway.
We created a blog of design ideas for the 2003 display.