CHRISTMAS

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ChristmasVideos

2009
(Produced by Shaun Sipma)
Wizards of Winter 
Christmas Eve Sarajevo
 Appalachain Snowfall
Carol of the Bells

 Dec 27 KXMC TV Spot

Dec 5 KMOT TV Interview

2008
(4) Professional Videos Produced by Shaun Sipma
(click on link and use high quality setting for best quality)

Christmas Sarajevo by Transiberian Orchestra (TSO)

Carol of the Bells (TSO)

Merry Christmas with a Capital C by Go Fish

  Joy to the World by Go Fish

Holiday Tips from the Olson Pets (KMOT Video)  

             

 

Christmas 2007 Videos by Rob Loney and Mike Greenup

Short Version:  Carol of the Bells-2:09

 

Long Version: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Jingle Bells, Carol of the Bells(6:58):

 


2006 Videos

KXMC TV Interview with Barry

 

PICTURES

Left Side of the Lawn (click on thumbnail for larger view)

Center Area of the Front Lawn

(Above 2 pictures from Dan Feldner's 12/4/07 Minot Daily News Article)
 

Along The Road

                

Up on The Rooftop (Click Click Click)

                                

    

 

News Articles

2008

Dan Feldner did a wonderful front page story on our lights (great job, as always, Dan).  The pictures are much
better on their website article.

Lighting up the holiday

Minot couple goes all out with display of lights

By DAN FELDNER, Staff Writer, dfeldner@minotdailynews.com

POSTED: December 14, 2008


Article Photos

Dan Feldner/MDN
Four arches placed in front of the house are the big addition to the Olson Christmas display this year. Each arch contains 2,000 LED lights that are synced by a computer to flash in time to four different songs. The lights on the bushes, trees and house are also synced to the music, creating a breathtaking sight during the faster songs.

It's early December in Minot, and that can only mean two things: Thousands of shoppers are jamming area malls looking for the perfect Christmas gift, and thousands of people are jamming the road to Barry and Judy Olson's house to see the supersized spectacle they humbly call their Christmas light display.

For those few who might not have heard of it, the Olson's annual extravaganza, located at 1500-52nd Ave. SW, which is south of the YMCA down 16th Street Southwest, is a Christmas display so audacious that D-Day is probably the last event requiring this amount of planning and preparation.

Tens of thousands of lights, dozens of inflatables and infinite patience are all needed to pull off what has quickly turned from a simple display into an event people from all over the region look forward to every year.

They turned things on Thanksgiving Day and are looking at running the display through Jan. 3, or whenever they get enough time to take everything down. The lights are turned on every night around 5 p.m. and usually are on until 10 p.m. at least.

For more information on the display or to see past displays, visit the Web site (www.olsondecorations.com).

Each year the Olsons come up with something new to add so the display stays fresh for those who see it year after year. This year four lighted arches were added to the growing list of items in the display. Like many of the pieces the Olsons have added over the years, the arches are synced to music by computer and flash in rhythm to the beat of whichever song is playing. The music is broadcast over the FM radio frequency 101.5, so anyone in a car can tune in their radio to that frequency to get the full effect of the show.

"The arches are really the big thing (this year)," Judy said. "People sit there and they just watch them and they love them."

"There's four of them, and there's about 2,000 lights on each one," Barry added.

Although programming the arches went more smoothly than programming the lights in the live trees boarding the property, Barry still had his fair share of problems getting the new additions to work. Barry said that when he turned the arches on this past Sunday, to his horror, nothing happened. He eventually traced the problem to a Cat 5 networking cable that had been completely severed.

"I go out there, and somebody had been walking through the yard when it was real cold, and they broke the cable," he said. "So I found the cable in two pieces, and I get in the car as fast as I can go and I get over there (a computer store) about two minutes to five and they're just getting ready to close and I got cable long enough for me to run."

Barry said stores that are open later don't have Cat 5 cable long enough to reach his displays, so he was two minutes away from keeping the big addition to this year's show in the dark that night.

Another problem has actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Olsons. Barry uses a laptop computer to program the music and light sequences before sending them out to the displays. This year he was only able to get four songs successfully transmitted to the displays. Even though he has several other songs ready to go, for some reason he can't export them.

This small problem ended up helping to solve the single biggest problem the Olsons have year after year - traffic.

In the past traffic has been so backed up the sheriff's department has had to come out to help direct. Barry said having only four songs cuts the total time of the show to a manageable 15 minutes. In past years he had up to 12 songs, which lasted around an hour. With many of the onlookers staying for every song, things quickly degenerated into something resembling New York City rush hour traffic in years past.

"To go through the whole thing now is about 15 minutes approximately, if they listen to all four," Barry said. "Even if we do change some songs out, we'll probably take one or two out and just switch around so that you don't get people staying for so long."

"People stay out there half an hour now to see it all twice," Judy said.

The more manageable crowds still didn't keep a sheriff's department vehicle from driving by the house twice in the span of a few minutes Thursday night to make sure everything was in order.

With the unintentional change to the song list, the number of vehicles stopped at the house at any one time usually doesn't exceed six, where in years past a line would literally stretch back to the YMCA.

Barry said people are also getting better about not parking in neighbor"s driveways, and turning off their headlights so those in front aren't blinded by the glare.

Another change they've made is putting literally everything on a remote control. Seven remotes the size of car starters are hooked to a keychain and control the power going to everything in the display. As the Olsons get older, they said they are less willing to tramp out in the snow just to turn everything on. They even have remotes for all their indoor Christmas lights, including the Christmas tree. An inflatable is hooked up to each power strip so they can easily tell if it's getting power or not without having to go outside and see if the lights are on.

While they've been moving away from inflatables and more towards LED lights, there are still more than a few large characters such as Snoopy and Homer Simpson to be found in the yard. The Olsons are reminded of how many inflatables are still part of the show every time it snows and they have to brush the powder off everything in the yard.

While Judy can easily imagine a day when they scale back the display or even stop putting it up altogether because of how much work it is - Barry starts programming the lights in July - Barry bristles at the notion that his hobby will become anything but bigger and better year after year.

"I don't see scaling back any time soon," Barry said. "I think of scaling up, actually. ... I'm looking at, instead of arches, I'm looking at chevrons now that would go in and out."

"Oh my God. Can you believe I'm the Scrooge now?" Judy said with a laugh. "Because it just takes so many hours and hours and hours."

2007

The below article ran in the Minot Daily News 12/4.  Dan Feldner did an awesome job...as always!

 

Making the season bright

By DAN FELDNER, Staff Writer dfeldner@minotdailynews.com

 
Dan Feldner/MDN

There are approximately 25,000 LED lights in the Christmas display outside the house of Barry and Judy Olson at 1500-52nd Ave. SW. Barry Olson constructed five metal trees directly in front of the house in July and each has 1,000 to 1,500 lights. He joked that anything short of a hurricane-force wind wouldn’t be able to knock the trees down.



 

Christmas is a holiday that evokes many different traditions, and one tradition that grows stronger in Minot with each passing year is driving by the Olsons’ to see and hear their annual Christmas extravaganza.

Barry and Judy Olson literally spend weeks getting their house at 1500-52nd Ave. SW, which is south of the YMCA down 16th Street Southwest, ready for Christmas by stringing thousands of lights and placing many different inflatables and other decorations around the yard. When the display is turned on, astronauts in the orbiting International Space Station could probably spot the Olsons’ house with a good pair of binoculars.

More than anything else, time and patience are needed to pull off an undertaking of this magnitude. Barry Olson said he started putting up decorations the day after Halloween. He couldn’t start before that because his less sizable but still impressive Halloween display was up. Once the calendar turns to November, however, the Olsons take the classic saying “out with the old, in with the new” to heart.

“If you haven’t seen our Halloween decorations on Halloween night, forget it,” Judy Olson laughed. “They’re gone.”

While setting up the various inflatables and stringing all the lights takes up plenty of time, a new feature that was added last year has exponentially increased the time it takes to finish the display. But all that extra time is worth it judging by the crowds.

A computer program allows Barry Olson to synchronize the blinking of his approximately 25,000 LED lights to the beat of music he transmits over the FM radio frequency 101.5. Once a car is in sight of the lights, tuning the radio to 101.5 FM will play the music over the stereo system and allow everyone in the vehicle to hear the music while the lights blink to the beat. This system allows the music to be heard in every car while not bothering the neighbors with external speakers.

He said it takes approximately one hour to program six seconds of music. With around 10 songs at roughly three minutes each, the time he spends on programming alone is staggering. That is why he’ll start programing next year’s music in February.

Although they don’t have an improvement of that magnitude this year, the Olsons always add something new to the show to keep it fresh. While most of the display is Barry Olson’s responsibility, his wife does add something new of her own every year. Last year it was a small helicopter, but this year she upped the ante with a 7-foot animated Ferris wheel.

“It goes around, (and) it’s got little people in it. Santa, and teddy bears, and Frosty,” she said. “That’s my little addition this year, so that’s quite popular.”

For his addition, Barry Olson is trying to synchronize the lights on a row of live trees bordering their property to music. He even bought a new laptop expressly for the purpose of programming the lights. Unfortunately, he’s having problems transferring the animation sequence from his laptop to the hardware that controls the lights.

He thinks the problem has something to do with Microsoft’s new Vista operating system, and said he’s received quite a bit of assistance from other users over the Internet to help him work out the kinks.

“There’s a whole user’s group and it really is good because they help each other and people that are interested in this, you know, you’re not out there on your own, necessarily,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that can help you.”

Olson noted that he’s even taken classes on how to use the software that have helped him tremendously.

If the crowds are anything like last year, there should be long lines of cars waiting to view the show before long. Last year, the Olsons said the line of cars waiting to see their display was sometimes backed up to the YMCA, which is about a mile away. Buses from schools and nursing homes were also regular visitors to the show. Judy Olson said there was even a three-car accident, though thankfully no one was hurt.

The line to see the display can last for hours, but that just gives Barry Olson more time to visit. He was out talking to visitors, which included people from Michigan and Arizona, pretty much every night last year. Although he plans to get to know as many people as possible this year as well, he will probably not be out as frequently as last year because he’s been feeling under the weather lately.

Sometimes the line gets so long that Judy Olson has to help direct traffic, and the neighbors even got in on the fun last year by helping the Olsons hand out candy canes. Frequent sightings of Santa Claus were also noted last year, something the Olsons expect to happen again this year.

To help make the experience as pleasant as possible for everyone this year, the Olsons ask that drivers dim their lights once they get to the house and park on the side of the road to watch, not in a neighbor’s driveway. They also noted that cars can take 51st Avenue Southwest to loop around to the house instead of waiting in a long line to get to 52nd Avenue Southwest.

While the Olsons don’t normally allow anyone in their driveway, either, they do make an exception with elderly visitors.

“If any of the nursing home people come by, they’re always welcome to come up in our driveway ... the older people and stuff, absolutely, come sit in the driveway,” Judy Olson said. “And then Barry will help them tune (their radio).”

Barry Olson may not be making a fortune on his display, but he’s definitely doing well in the fame department. He mentioned that when he was in the doctor’s office recently, the nurse commented that his address was “out by those people who have the lights.”

“So I tell her, ‘I’m the person with the lights,’” he said. “She gets everybody in the office to come out and meet me because they all know who I am, they’ve all been out here I don’t know how many times.”

“It’s such a good feeling, it really is,” Judy Olson added.

The display has also brought out the generosity of many people who have seen it.

“People try to give us money, too. I keep trying to take it but he won’t let me,” Judy Olson laughed.

They said the LED lights use very little power, so a better recipient for any donations people want to give would be either the Souris Valley Humane Society, whose board of directors Judy Olson is the president of, or Pheasants for the Future.

Links to both organization’s Web sites can be found on the Olsons’ own Web site at (www.olsondecorations.com). Pictures and video of the Olsons’ Christmas and Halloween displays from last year can also be found there, giving those who haven’t had a chance to see the display in person a look at what has become the talk of the town.
 

2006

Our local paper, the Minot Daily News, ran a story on us December 2, 2006.  We thought Dan Feldner, the reporter, did a great job!  It sure has generated a lot of traffic!  :)  We've include the story below. 

 

 

Something to see

By DAN FELDNER, Staff Writer dfeldner@minotdailynews.com

 

People who drive by the house of Barry and Judy Olson during the holidays might be excused for thinking they’ve wandered onto the movie set of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

In that classic Christmas movie, Clark Griswold, played by Chevy Chase, blinds his neighbors and forces the local power company to bring an extra nuclear reactor online with his Christmas light display.

One look at his house this holiday season shows Barry Olson has similar aspirations.

It all started so innocently six or seven years ago. The Olsons lived on North Hill at the time and bought an outdoor plastic figure for their lawn. They quickly got an inflatable Grinch through Judy’s sister, who lived on the East Coast — and things just snowballed from there.

“We were the only people in town who had Grinch, and the next year Judy bought all of them at Wal-Mart ... so no one else would have any,” Barry chuckled as his wife laughed at the memory.

Since then, the Olsons have moved to the outskirts of Minot and their inflatable collection has grown to 21, though they don’t put all of them out at once. The new house gave them much more room to expand the Christmas display, and they’ve taken advantage of it. Besides all of the inflatables, the display includes lights draped over the house, trees and bushes, some snowmen stealing the family camper and a helicopter landing on the roof of the house. And just to make sure nobody misses their house, there are also several large trees decked out with lights along the edge of their property by 16th St. SW so everybody knows where they are.

“It’s almost like you get addicted to this stuff,” Barry said. “I mean it’s actually kind of fun and (it’s a) ’what can you think of next?’ kind of thing.”

Barry said a lot of the same people come by to see all their different displays throughout the year, as they also decorate their lawn for Halloween, Valentine’s Day and Easter. They especially enjoy getting all of the thank yous from parents who bring their kids. He mentioned that he’s not sure how the display became so elaborate, but his wife helped jog his memory.

“It was my thing when it was just the plastics and a few lights. Once they got inflatables, those were big-boy toys, weren’t they, honey?” Judy said, looking at her husband. “So once they got those, he started getting into Christmas. And now with this animated lighting, it is quite clearly his show.”

Each year, they each try to add something new to the display. This year the couple has added the animated lighting. Barry said he saw a video on the Internet that showed animated lighting used at someone’s house, and after watching the video over and over, he knew he had to add it to his display.

He found the equipment he needed on the Web site (www.animatedlighting.com). The lights are synchronized to music by a programmable computer controller, and Barry said that he can either use the preprogrammed songs that come with the system, or he can program his own songs.

“The sky is kind of the limit on what you can do,” he said.

While the lights look great on their own, onlookers are only getting half of the show if they don’t hear the music. Since playing the music over loudspeakers wouldn’t make many neighbors too happy, it is broadcast over the radio frequency 101.5 FM. Tuning a radio to this frequency allows everyone looking at the lights to listen to the music from the comfort of their own car, when they can have the volume as loud or soft as they want. The signal only extends a few blocks from their house, so the FCC doesn’t have to worry about them starting their own Christmas radio station.

While the results are spectacular, maybe just as spectacular is the work that goes into the light show. Olson said the five small trees strung with programmable lights in his front yard have 72 extension cords running to them. Add in all the inflatables, additional strings of lights and other odds and ends, and the number of extension cords goes into the hundreds.

With the thousands of lights used, one can’t help but think of the electric bill. He said that they’ve recently switched to LED lights, which use far less power than normal lights. He said the large trees lining the road by their house have about 7,000 lights and use less than 1 amp of power. That switch has helped quite a bit with the electric bill, though it probably is still noticeably higher than other people’s bills this winter.

While the big addition to the collection this year was the animated lights, his wife has also been making some additions of her own. She added a helicopter landing on the roof of the house and also created a Web site at (www.olsondecorations.com) to help promote the Christmas display. She has even written a story about some snowmen stealing the family camper and Santa chasing after them that ties all the different parts of the display together.

The couple said they have spent thousands of dollars on lights alone, and joked that they could have probably bought a new car with what they’ve spent on all of the decorations. But it has turned into a hobby that both are passionate about, and they said being able to entertain everybody who drives by their house, especially the kids, is well worth it.

They already have some ideas on how to improve the display next year, but aren’t yet sure which ones will work and which ones won’t. Though the display is constantly evolving from year to year, there is one thing both are sure of about next year’s display.

“It’ll be bigger next year,” Judy promised.