Home Christmas

Park a Christmas classic on your front lawn with the Inflatable National Lampoons Christmas Vacation Station Wagon

NEWS – If you’re a fan of the movie National Lampoons Christmas Vacation this decoration will assure that your family will have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby danced with Danny (bleeping) Kaye.

The Griswold’s family station wagon is now immortalized in a gigantic inflatable lawn decoration. The old front-wheel drive sleigh comes complete with wooden side panels and the perfect Griswold Christmas tree strapped to the top.

It’s better than a subscription to the Jelly of the Month Club.

This 8-foot decoration self-inflates in seconds, just stake it down and watch the magic unfold. It even has LED lighting that will make you the envy of even your stuffiest neighbors.

Just remember to plug it in before you invite the family outside to dedicate the Family Christmas House.

To get the Inflatable National Lampoons Christmas Vacation Station Wagon, you won’t have to drive out to the middle of nowhere. It’s available at your local Home Depot for $119.

Who knows, maybe if you’re lucky Uncle Eddie will even show up.

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Park a Christmas classic on your front lawn with the Inflatable National Lampoons Christmas Vacation Station Wagon originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 1, 2018 at 8:00 am.

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Do some good while decorating your Christmas tree

NEWS – In addition to buying gifts for friends and family members, Christmas is also a time to do a little good for others.  Buying the St. Jude’s Hospital Carson Light-Up Light Bulb Ornament is a way to get a gift for someone or an ornament for your own tree while doing good.  While supplies last, Rejuvenation will donate 30% of the purchase price to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, “which is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.”

The ornament is a snow globe in a standard light bulb.  It is a snowy scene with trees and a lamp post that looks like the Carson light produced by the Rejuvenation company.  The lamp post actually lights up by flipping a small switch on the ornament.  It is made of glass, tin metal, sisal, cardboard, and it is 3.25″ wide x 5.5″ tall.

Each St. Jude’s Hospital Carson Light-Up Light Bulb Ornament is $19.00.  You can purchase one at Rejuvenation.

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Do some good while decorating your Christmas tree originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 29, 2018 at 11:00 am.

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Modern Christmas Trees are perfect for your Mid-Century Modern or space-age celebration

NEWS – I’m a child of the Mid-Century, and I’ve found that nothing feels like home to me now as much as the furnishings and design elements of my childhood.  Apparently Matt Bliss feels nostalgic about his childhood, too, and was inspired to reproduce a part of his family’s Christmas celebrations for all of us to enjoy.  His grandfather, an engineer and architect named Lawrence “Bud” Stoecker, designed and created the first Modern Christmas Tree for his family in the 1960s from cardboard.  Over the years, he refined his designs and finally determined that Plexiglas was the best material for his minimal, modern Christmas tree.  Just like Matt’s modern version, Bud’s original acrylic trees merely suggested the shape of a tree, so the ornaments became the star of the show.

When Matt’s grandfather was was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he decided it was time to show the world Bud’s wonderful design.  The Modern Christmas Tree debuted at the Denver Modernism Show in 2011, and was a big hit.  Since then, Matt has had the tree photographed in many fabulous Mid-Century homes, where the tree is enhanced by and, in turn, enhances the gorgeous period architecture.  And more importantly for us, Matt has made the Modern Christmas Tree available for purchase.

The Modern Christmas Tree is available in three versions.  First up is the 7.5-foot tall tree; it consists of ten concentric acrylic rings that hang from the ceiling or from an optional tulip-based stand.  The widest ring is 41″.  The rings are available in crystal clear, pearl white, ruby red, emerald green, sapphire blue, or rainbow.  Each tree is available with or without a set of 192 glass crystals and glass bulbs.   An LED light source stands at the base of the tree, shining light up through the acrylic rings, lighting the tree and ornaments and casting shadows and colors up onto the ceiling and walls.  The Large Tree is $799.99 with the decorations, hanging hardware, and light source; the undecorated tree (for using your own ornaments) is $449.00.  The optional tree stand is $149.00; a sputnik tree topper is available for the 7.5-ft tree for $39.00.  If you need a more compact tree, a 6-foot tall, semi-circular, wall-hanging tree is available for $329.00 decorated or $219.00 undecorated.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bud’s original design, Matt has introduced the Jubilee tabletop tree.  The Jubilee stands 33″ tall, and it comes with a stand and color-changing, battery- or AC-operated LED light source with remote control, forty hand-cut, polished glass chandelier crystals, and four complete sets of shatterproof ball ornaments in silver, red, green, and blue.  It also comes with three toppers – heart, shamrock, and star.  The Jubilee tree and ornaments set is $249.00.

Learn more at the Modern Christmas Tree website, and order now for your modern Christmas celebration!  (My 7.5-ft tree and Jubilee tree should both arrive this Friday!)

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Modern Christmas Trees are perfect for your Mid-Century Modern or space-age celebration originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 27, 2018 at 8:00 am.

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This year, your Christmas tree can look out of this world with the Solar System Collection!

NEWS – I’m continuing on my mission of finding and drooling over every orrery and solar system representation I can find.  My latest finds are beautiful blown-glass solar system ornaments from the people at GlassSculpture.org.  B. E. Johnson and Joy Alyssa Day are the scientists/engineers/artists behind this company.  They make a lot of glass art, including gorgeous representations of our solar system.  Our interest today is their Solar System Collection Christmas ornaments.

Because they are scientists, they want their ornaments to be as accurate as possible, but they know they can’t create them to scale.  As they say, nobody has a Christmas tree big enough to hold a >27-foot diameter Sun ornament, assuming a 3″ Earth and a 33″ Jupiter.  Conversely, a 4″ Sun means a 0.014″ Mercury, 0.036″ Earth, and a 0.4″ Jupiter – making for a very boring Christmas tree.  Instead, they have developed a “relative scale” they use for their creations.  They explain:

“The Rocky planets are proportional to each other. The Gas Giants are proportional to each other. The Rocky and Gas Giant groups are proportional to each other, but on yet a different scale. This still gives a sense of the relationships, and there’s something grand to look at that tells an educational story. We’re Scientist-Artist-Engineers well versed in this stuff, but there is only so much that one can do in a given situation and have it be successful.”

They describe their ornaments as: “A Saturn that actually LOOKS like Saturn, with Cassini data used to etch the rings! A Sun with sunspots! Earth and Mars with clouds and polar caps, Jupiter with a red spot, and I include Pluto, just because! Very cool!! And with a loop on the top to hang on your tree. I like to hang these in the window during non-Christmas months. The sunlight coming through them is amazing! I hand blow these ornaments myself. Ornament size is about 2″ for the small ones, up to 4 inches, and Saturn has the rings about 4.5″. With the rings, the ornament is heavier than my others and may be too heavy for little trees. All of the ornaments are thicker than cheap breakable ones, and have been crash tested by my cats to be able to withstand normal handling and last a lifetime as heirloom pieces.”

You can buy a complete set of ornaments with all 8 planets, Pluto, and a Sun for $395.00 directly from GlassSculpture.org, or if you prefer to use Amazon’s payment method, you can get them at Amazon for $419.00.  If you buy directly from the artists, you can build your collection by purchasing each planet individually.  Prices range from $25 for Mercury to $95 for Saturn.  They say they will send you a free Sun when you have completed your collection.

I’ve ordered, and I can’t wait for my Solar System Collection to get here.  I’m not waiting for Christmas to display them.  I’m already calculating the spacing to display them permanently at the entrance to my sunroom.  With only 10 feet to work with, I’m going to have to use some relative scale spacing to fit them…

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This year, your Christmas tree can look out of this world with the Solar System Collection! originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 10, 2018 at 10:00 am.

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Star Shower makes Christmas decorating easy!

With Star Shower, you’ll be able to decorate the exterior of your house without requiring ladders or risking a trip to the ER.  Shown in the above image is the Window Wonderland.  Apply the adjustable 4ft x 6ft easy-fit screen to the inside of your windows, position the old movie camera-styled projector in your yard, and you’re ready to start projecting moving holiday displays on the front of your house.  The kit includes six Christmas movies and six Halloween movies for next fall.

The normal price of the Window Wonderland kit is $59.99; it’s available now for $19.99.

If you want a display that could cover the entire front of your house (up to 3200 sq ft), check out Star Shower’s Slideshow.  Choose one of the 12 slides (for Christmas, Halloween, Independence Day, Easter, Valentine’s Day, or birthdays), insert it into the LED projector and watch your house be covered in bright, colorful holiday designs.  An efficient motor sets your selected designs dancing over the house at the selected display speeds: fast, slow, or freeze. It comes with an indoor base if you’d rather have your slideshow inside.  The Slideshow kit was $39.99, but it’s now $29.99.

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Star Shower makes Christmas decorating easy! originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 6, 2017 at 8:00 am.

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