2006

Not long after the 2005 holiday season, I began thinking about adding another 200amp electric drop from the power company. We had really enjoyed the 46,000 lights, and received a lot of encouragement from many folks, but it still didn’t feel ‘complete’ – we needed more lights, and adding a couple more 20amp circuits just wasn’t going to bring the display up to the level I envisioned. I was also considering LED’s, which consume a fraction of the electricity, but in 2005, the ones I had purchased were not that bright and were disproportionately expensive. We went ahead and proceeded with the 200amp drop. This allowed me to greatly expand the display and in 2006, we achieved 73,006 lights.

Carson Williams video, and animating my display to music was still very much on my mind, but with the new power drop, and having to nearly double my display, I made the decision to wait, for now, on this giant leap forward. While dismantling the display that year, the realization, that just expanding the size of the display wasn’t going to be fulfilling any more, was very clear to me.