Christmas Display at Helping People Succeed

Last year, I wrote about how I visited the Stuart Helping People Succeed. Their Christmas display is phenominal!!! Since they are open until a few days after Christmas, I swung by today to see how they changed up this year's display. Each office/cubicle has a Christmas scene. I saw a candyland, peppermint, polar bears, Santas, tropical, and gold/teal.

From Copeland Christmas Blog

I just might go back tomorrow to take a few more photos. We have had several people stop by the house telling us about this office and how one lady does most of the styrofoam carvings. I must say, the carving work is really nice.

From Copeland Christmas Blog

I don't really know anything about their organization...just what I found on their website. See below for a brief blurb about their efforts.
Helping People Succeed, Inc. is considered a national model for agencies serving individuals who need special training, education, employment and living arrangements.

TSO Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24 - SuperStar Christmas Light Display - A...

If I had a million dollars, here's what I'd do.


Ok, so it's only $3000...I still can't do it. :)

2011 Copeland Christmas Display Ideas

This afternoon I spent some time experimenting with a few display mock-ups in Photoshop. Here is one mockup that I really like, but it's infeasable to execute the way we would want to do it.


John loves leaping arches (along the street). I love them also, but each arch takes 8 channels. For us, that would be about 14 x 8 = 112 channels...which is more than our whole house uses now. We could make every second arch the same, but it would look too cookie cutter. I need to think more about the arches.

Next, the large star is something that Richard Holdman did a few years back. Many people have replicated the star...and it turns out awesome every time, so I think it's a winner.

We still have our candle sticks...which I think is still unique to Copeland Christmas. And we still love them, so they will stay.

The icicles are an idea I had several years ago, but didn't have time to execute. I think they could be feasible for 2011. I would make them from polystyrene, just like I make the village bases and how I made the workbench icicles a few years ago. Here's a little candy shop from this year's display that has cute rounded ice. Perhaps this variation would be better.


Last year, I used a spare piece of styrofoam to see how sturdy the icicles would be...it worked pretty good.

Copeland Christmas Voted Number 1

This is so funny...I checked the mail today and found this homemade award that someone put in the mailbox. It is from the Smith family and it declares that we are a "2010 Favorite"!!!!!

Thank you to the Smith family for choosing our house as your 2010 favorite! Check us out on facebook or Youtube...drop us a line and let us know who you are and why we were chosen this year. And of couse, we want to say "thank you."

Darude - Sandstorm Christmas Lights

Watch what happens at the 34 second mark. I am incorporating this type of sequencing into next years display.

Da Funk by Daft Punk Christmas Lights in La Salle Illinois 2009

I have finally had the opportunity to look around online to see what other Christmas enthusiasts are doing with their displays. Here's a pretty cool display in Illinois. He uses 250 channels...just for reference, we use 96.

Wattson Lights

Another awesome display from Canada!

The 2010 Lights are OFF!

It's a bittersweet day here at Copeland Christmas...yesterday was the last day of the 2010 show! We are happy to get things back to normal around here, but we are still sad to see the daily tours end. Today we have gale force winds, so the garage would not have been opened up anyway.

It was a great season. I'm happy to say that we collected over $400 cash and donated it to the Martin County chapter of Toys For Tots. We also collected 5 overflowing shopping carts filled with toys. We met lots of great people...

Heather and Clement, the adorable baby
General Patton the Yorkie
Reef the Golden-doodle
Harley, the Yorkie

...and we said Hi to so many regulars like

Gunner and his family from Palm City
Ethel who brought our dog a Bah Humbug shirt
Beth who brought two Annalees for our collection
Dave who knows everything about German nutcrackers
Bell, the Ham and Cheese Pointer
Doug/Donna and Mitch Lee, fellow LOR enthusiasts
The Thiel Family (and baby #3) from PSL

Thank you to everyone who came out and brought a donation for Toys For Tots. Some of you brought huge trash bags filled with toys...Stevensons and Rubinos!!! We appreciate it and I know the kids do. maybe we can get John to do a guest post on his mini tour at the donation facility (at the fairgrounds).


Speaking of John, here is a photo of John a few weeks ago making his signature champagne punch.I think he only went through 4 cases this season (seriously).


Weather tonight (Dec 26)...

- Freeze Warning in effect
- Freeze Watch in effect
- Wind Chill Watch in effect
- Fire Weather Watch in effect

After a mild morning, the temperatures are dropping quickly behind a cold front pushing through South Florida today. Expect temperatures below 50 degrees by tonight, and temperatures falling below freezing by Monday morning. Expect the overnight hours to feel like the 20s for everyone.

After Christmas sale 2010 Part 2

We spent just over $100 at Pier 1 Imports today...which is more than we like to spend. However, we got some really cute tree ornaments that I've been eyeing all season. First, we got two tinsel top hats that will top two trees next year.

We also got the last three glitter hanging snowflakes. The glitter gift ornaments from the Merry & Bright line are adorable and they will look great on a glitter tree next year. I think I'll do a tree which has all green/red/black glitter ornaments. It will be awesome!

After Christmas Shopping Part 1

We had a great morning doing our after-Christmas shopping. Today we didn't even wake up until after 8am...which is unusual because we are usually done by 8:15am! Check out our adventures from years gone by here. Today after we got home from our spree, we hit the online deals. Target the onlys store that has excellent items still available online...the only problem is that one set of LED lights is currently still $24.99. We ended up getting a few cute items from HomeDepot.com...see below.

We got two lighted tinsel gold bows that I had my eye on all season. They were $12 each (down from $20).

 We also bought 6 sets of 9 ft. 54-Light LED White Bead Garland Light. They were $46 for 6 sets. Not the best deal, but they weren't available in the store, so I'm ok with the purchase.

Palm City holiday house is a longtime family tradition

Palm City holiday house is a longtime family tradition

General Patton Meets Tinsel

Great friends and big Copeland Christmas supporters visited Copeland Christmas today. They brought nearly 2 truck loads of toys and donated them to Toys For Tots. They come each year with their Florida santa hats and huge smiles.

Here's a photo of us last year...what a cool tradition!

The lights are on!!

No rain tonight! Come on down!...here' Jim's candy tree!
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Weather Might Turn off The Lights Tonight

Here at Copeland Christmas, the weather just might shot down the lights tonight.

The local news radar shows a band of rain (green) approaching. Outside it just began to rain and the chairs have blown into the pool 3 times already. We will just let them stay in the pool for now :)

The rain is being ushered in by an Arctic Cold Front, says the news and it will be in the low 50s tonight and low 40s tomorrow (Monday).

Our only concern is that the garage faces West, and the wind is coming right out of the west...right into the garage. We might have to close up the garage to avoid all that powdery snow from blowing away.

If you plan on heading out to Copeland Christmas tonight (Dec 12) call first to make sure the house is lit up! 772 708 5254.




On a happier note, let's take a look at a recent photo from earlier this week. Here's the manger.

Garage Photos from 2010 Copeland Christmas Display

John and I were lucky enough to make it to my office holiday party last night. Joey watched the house for us. Tonight is John's office party, but thankfully, Joey has agreed to help us out again. All I had to do was get him some candy canes! If you come by tonight, ask for Joey...he'll get you punch and cookies. :)


Here's one of the Copeland family trains. John and Jim both love this train because there is so much going on with it!

Here we are lastnight at the Imperial office party.

2010 Copeland Christmas Garage Display

Here's a quick note a short video of the garage display. More to come!



We enjoyed a large crowd last night...probably 150 people. Since it was a Saturday, we extended the program to 11pm. We had a few sweet stories...

A Palm City resident who has turned into a regular brought friends this year again and made a significant Toys For Tots donation. She still has the little punch cup that we gave her last year! How cute!...and generous!

A crowd of young ladies came last night celebrating a birthday and a miracle. The mom was overtaken with emotion because at this time last year, her daughter was in the hospital waiting to get a pacemaker. Last night was the daughter's birthday and I must say she is looking fab!

Two new trees for Copeland Christmas

This year I was not going to struggle with Black Friday crowds, but then I saw the Lowes flyer showing prelit trees for $38 and a shopvac for $29. I figured the traffic and crowds would be horrible...turns out the whole experience was a pleasure!!!! Our Stuart Lowes had a full staff and there we no lines. I was there around 8am. Love it. Here's a photo of the two trees fully decorated on the back porch.


Here's the USA tree where we are collecting Toys for Tots


Here's the retro tree.

Cute store Christmas Display

Originally uploaded by ladybugfalcon

I really like this idea of using landscape bricks for the snowy scene. This could work really well on the porch where the display is a bit more rustic. I will remember this for next year!

Copeland Christams Gold Angel Tree

Copeland Christams 2010-24
Originally uploaded by ladybugfalcon

We always do gold angels in the kitchen. For this year's 2010 display, I was so excited to use ornaments from last year's after-Christmas sales. Here's how the tree looks on top of the refrigerator. Here's a link to my photos from last year after I purchsed the gold angel ornaments.

We finished Copeland Christmas 2010 "The Garage"

Over the past three days we really put a lot of work into the garage! I'm pleased to say last night it was finished!!!

Here is a neighbor making a little elf dangle off the workbench with some little presents in his hands.
Here's the same helper placing snow to perfectly hide every single wire.


Here we are late last night putting all the village people, cars, trees, and accessories into the village building scene. It was so much fun to do this with kids because they know exactly which house each person should be in front of. There is a reason why each of the little accessories was placed in its spot. It's precious.

Got a lot on the porch done!

We are hoping to be done by Sunday, so we spent all day working on the garage and porch. In the garage we did the North mountain and in the middle of the train. In the porch we did the USA tree, the tinsel hot air balloon corner and the silver trees. My Mom, Matthew, and Allie came over to help today and I just can't imagine that we could have done it without them! More photos to follow.
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Copeland Christmas in local Newspaper

Wow! Our display was featured in an editorial piece in today's Flashes!


Here's the jpg version

Copeland Christmas Custom Gator Outdoor Lighted Display

Our good friends rescued this old gator wireframe from a marina out near Lake Okeechobbee. They refurbished it and strung it with orange and blue GATOR lights! What a great gift!....thank you Dennis, Joely, Danielle, and Chris!!!



It's little things like this that make this whole Christmas display worth laboring over each year!

Added new items to the Candy Mountain Scene

I added a few items from our recent trip to the Christmas Palace to our Candy Mountain Scene. The fence and the peppermint path has been added. Now I just need to find a "charlie" to stick in the scene.

Jim and Cathys Christmas decorations 2010

Jim and Cathy decorated the kitchen last weekend. It looks so cute!
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2010 Copeland Christmas Set Up

Here's a short video of what we did today with the dining room. We built a Diseny scene. The song is a 2010 Copeland Christmas favorite. We are glad to see this song getting some commercial airplay this year. Can't wait to see the house lights blink to this song ;)

Tinsel the Dog Helping With Christmas Setup

Tinsel helps all the time lately with putting up the Christmas stuff. Here she is next to the big reindeer. So cute.

More items for the candy scene

Just left Christmas Palace in Ft. Lauderdale. Got some cute candy paths for the candy scene.
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Finished the wine table display

Thanks kathy and amanda!!!

Gingerbread Scene Done

My friend Lynn and I started and finished the gingerbread scene today. John, Joey, Jim, Cathy, and Frank cranked away at the garage and it is turning out UNBELIEVABLE!
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