Nice to see I'm not the only nutter, although tbh I take a back seat these days, a few years ago when the kids were younger I used to start in August! I'd sort out all the designs, then the equipment needed, then the fabrication, usually by the end of November the kit was ready to install. I used to make these Christmas tableaux, a bit like the stuff you'd see in Blackpool, each frame was about 6 feet square and we had a different theme every year, they were so big we had anchor points on the wall at roof height and used to winch these things into position, the funny thing was though that the local kids used to wait for the final piece to go up, if it didn't then as far as they were concerned it just wasn't Christmas, believe it or not, the final piece was a Coca Cola fibre optic sign that I had acquired during a refit of the bar on Blackpools North Pier.
We actually had a control panel for this lot, one guy down the road came up one night, he was a bit of a chav and I'd just started putting a few lights up, he told me I'd never beat his display, (excuse me I wasn't aware it was a competition) he'd got one of those stick on plastic silhouettes in each window and a rope light down the fence, I was just putting some small garden stuff up. His face was a picture when, a couple of days later he came up again, "what the hell are you, a nutter?" he asked when he saw all the stuff in place, "no, just an electrician" I replied.
One night we were sat in the lounge and I heard a noise outside, it sounded like a large truck stopping, I looked out and there was a fire engine on my front! I went out to see if anything was wrong and got chatting to the firemen, "it's ok, mate, the police and ambo will be here in a few minutes, don't worry" one of them told me. Don't worry, there's already a fire engine and apparently, the police and ambulance are on their way, what's going on? I needn't have worried though, it turned out they'd heard about my display and had driven past on their way back from a job to see if it was as big as they'd heard, it was, they'd put a call in to the local cop shop, they were pretty quiet, so decided to come and have a look, they'd contacted our small local ambo station, yes, they too were quiet, of course they'd like to see it, they'd be along shortly. It was hilarious seeing them all arrive, a riot van full of coppers and the 2 local medics in an ambulance. We even used to get minibuses full of oap's rolling up early evening, they'd just sit in the bus and look at the lights.
Everyone knew our house and I enjoyed seeing the little kids faces, I don't bother these days, but I enjoyed giving a little bit of pleasure to loads of people, and the kit didn't go to waste when I packed in, it went to 3 different families and they still use it now.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE.
