Decorating with lights started at an early age, at around 7 years old, when santa delivered 5 strings of GE "Merry Midget" lights.  Each strand was a lengthy 35 bulbs long!  At first, I was disappointed because I had specifically asked for the "large bulb c9 sets".  Santa must have misheard me, because from then on my mother and father had me present when they were purchasing lights sets.  Light sets were always purchased after Christmas when the items were marked down.

Each year after that Christmas, the amount of lights would grow and grow.  I actually still have the first 5 light sets that santa delivered - although the sets were retired in 1997.  (Back then I had all kinds of time to repair the light sets for use year after year - prior to having a wife & kids!)  1997 also marked the year that I would venture away from the nest and have to pay my own power bill.  Today, I still repair and look for those old lights... the c6, c7 and c9 (even the minis) when time permits.

The light display for 1998 involved decorating a 40' tall pine tree at my previous residence in Saginaw township.  This tree had hundreds of c7 bulbs and required 3-20 amp circuits to light.  On December 15, 1999 I moved to my present location and put up a total of 25 c9 bulbs on the garage.  2000 marked the first year for decorating my new place with "quite a few lights".  Each year the display grew, and in 2003 I switched to using 25 watt bulbs for my large front pine tree.  In 2004-05 the lights were pretty much the same.  Up to this point, everybody that knew me knew that I had put up "quite a few lights" at Christmas time.  In late 2005, an Email showed up saying that I just had to see how this guy in Ohio animated his lights.  I saw the video, knew that was my next step... and the rest is history.        

Here is my original website from my old Christmas light collection.  The page has not been updated in quite a few years, due to lack of time.  http://www.oldchristmaslights.info  If you have any old lights that you would like to part with please contact me:              Gary at freelandlights.com (replace at with @)

Originally, I had thought that I was the only person who gathered these older light sets... until this site came about.  There are many wonderful pictures on this site, and obviously countless hours of research about old Christmas lights.  http://www.oldchristmaslights.com