Christmas Designs

Tree’s Company

Jeff Abbott, the production director at Christ Church in Hickory, North Carolina put in a treemendous amount of work into this awesome set. (originally posted September 2011)The theme of the season was ‘Christmas ain’t your Birthday”, so he wanted a set that had Christmas icons, without having a traditional Christmas look. So Jeff sat down with Google’s Ketchup (Google Sketchup) to design.

Jeff built the “Trees” for about 3 weekends before the set was constructed. Then he hung over 60 strands of Christmas lights, controlled in pairs via 32 DMX dimmer channels.

The trees were constructed from unfinished 2×4’s & 2×2. 1 1/2 diameter & 1/2 diameter wooden dowels. To drill the holes, he purchased a drill press and extended it to accommodate the long 2×4’s. (See pic) The paper behind the trees is “End Roll” from the local newspaper, wrinkled, then taped to the back of the trees. The trees were lit from above and with LED Panels from the floor. Total cost for this set was about $1750.


Frosty Windows Starry Night

3 responses to “Tree’s Company”

  1. Eva says:

    What program do you use to design the Sketch up?

    • Thornton Woerner says:

      I used this design. And its great looking. However, i replaced the Dowels with PVC pipe. Save’s a ton on money. I did have to paint though. The wood maybe better looking than painted…who knows.

  2. corey says:

    how did you hang the christmas lights on the back wall?

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