Monday December 26, 2022:  It’s looking like a lot of rain this week, but I will try  and be open. A lot of our display is not rain proof.

Saturday December 17, 2022: It’s the weekend before Christmas and the weather outlook is good.

December 12,2022: No rain forecasted – yea.

December 7, 2022: It’s looking like possible rain Thursday night, with a mega storm coming Saturday and Sunday.

December 2, 2022 (Friday): We are open tonight, but it’s looking like rain for the weekend and tomorrow night is the Lighted Boat Parade.

November 27, 2022:  We are open. If you want to avoid the crowds, this is the week to come visit. The closer to Christmas, the more crowded it will be and that we are closed on rainy nights. So if you want to enjoy it, by yourself or with a few other people, come now.

December 15, Wednesday: Looks like rain late this afternoon – we will be closed.December 6, 2021: We will be closed tonight. Yesterday, we had Sprinkles Bravo Photography here taking pictures of their models and as they were finishing up the film crew for Dear Santa was setting up – filming for next years Dear Santa’s series.

November 27, 2021:  WE OPEN TONIGHT. Sorry I have not been posting, but I’ve been busy.

January 19, 2021:  I’m in the process of taking everything down and very grateful that we’re having good weather. I’ve got to make the best of it in the next two days as the weather is going to change to rain.

For those who came last year/2020, everyone was able to enjoy our display without any crowds. The only crowds we had were, when I  would open at night and there were 5 families waiting at the most. By 7:30 it was empty and quite a few nights I closed early because no one was here. Those who came were happy they did. We had quite a few first timers and one night someone was trying to explain to them what it’s like just before Christmas – shoulder to shoulder with visitors.

In 2019, because of the rain, we were only open 11 nights and 3 of those nights we got rained out, with 2 of those nights being heavy rains. Luckily, there were people here who helped me close – we’re not rain proof and they left drenched. Will we go from La Nina to El Nino next year; hope not.

Thursday New Year’s Eve: We will be open from 5:30 – 8pm tonight and New Year’s Day.

MONDAY DECEMBER 28: We will be open this week, but due to low attendance we will be closing at 8pm.

We are open and practicing safety protocols.

I closed Rivi’s house for safety reasons  and that will eliminate a lot of people hanging out. Plus, now the way we’ve laid it out there’s a designated path for people to walk thru.

So that we may stay open I have come up with some safety protocols:

• everyone has to wear a mask
• absolutely no touching anything
• all groups will stay together, which means no kids or anyone will wander around
• Rivi’s/Lucy’s house is closed this year

Opening night will be Monday November 30. There is so much detail work – it’s endless. It’s 11:30 at night and I just finished for the day and now I’m on here. My apologies for the delay, but you’ll love it. We now have 5 new displays. I want to set up a few nights where people can rent time slots just like what their doing in the theatres now. I’ll work on that after I finish setting up and open. We are asking for donations this year.

Friday November 27, 2020: Our opening night will be on Monday and not Sunday the 29th. I will post more late tonight.

November 17, 2020: I am setting up for this year, but will I be able to be open to the public – I don’t know?  Santa Cruz just went purple for the covid, which means anything nonessential gets shut down. If I could be open I’m not sure that I want to be open to the public – I know people will come here that are sick and the last thing I want to do is catch the virus and wear a mask outside at night during the coldest month of the year in my own yard for 3+ hours every night. Maybe it might rain every night like last year. I was only open 11 nights and on some of those nights I got rained out.

Gatherings are not aloud, but 3 households/family may gather. So I’ve had family, friends, and people that come every year tell me that they are hesitant to come if it’s open to the public and suggested that for a “donation” I allot times to families or groups, which seems like it could be safe and legal. The last couple of years I’ve had friends come at night and act as guides and security, but I don’t know if they are willing this year with the covid – can’t blame them. With out extra security I will not open to the public – we get thieves (what your not hearing is former Sgt. Farley swearing up a storm about them). What kind of person visits a Christmas display and rips it off? So I’m seriously considering small groups – for a donation!

 

Christmas Eve 2019: I’m planning on being open tonight even if there is a lite rain.

Sunday Dec 15: We’ve only been open 5 nights so far and on 3 of those nights it rained and one of those nights I got drenched trying to close down. It looks like the next 2 nights will be clear and COLD.

WEDNESDAY DEC.11: Is it going to stop raining? In my last post on Nov. 26, I mentioned that we haven’t had rain yet. It started raining on us late that afternoon and the rain we received the next 2 days wiped out our fairy garden as well as some of our display. The intensity of the rain flooded our bedroom and also a lot of our outdoor display, where the plugs were completely saturated and ruined along with circuit boards. I have 3 more items left in our display to fix.

I was open last night and noticed the wind had changed and could smell rain, but I told myself it’s not going to rain. Just before closing it just started pouring and with some help it took me 40 mins. to get everything put away – I was completely soaked. Their calling for more rain tonight and Friday. And the middle of next week is looking like heavy rain.

I’ve surfed once since the end of September and in the last month I’ve had a lot of help. And it’s sad, because I normally open Thanksgiving weekend and here it is the 11th and I’ve only been open 3 nights.

It’s Tuesday November 26, 2019: I have been working full time since September and today my brother Francis/Farley Electrical brought his whole crew over to help – 6 people and we worked all day. I still have the inside miniature village to do and a few lighting things left and decorate the garland and then I will be done.  I’m very grateful for their help. Everything has had a makeover and every year it takes longer to set up. I was fortunate that we’ve had no rain yet.

Sad to announce that Mickey is no longer with us. For those of you who have been here, Mickey would lay by the entrance every night waiting for people to pet her. I started about 15 years ago and Mickey was here for eleven of those Christmas’s. She will be sincerely missed.

When you enter our yard you see our giant artificial Christmas tree – 20’+, this will be the trees last year. I had to do a lot improvising so that I would be able to use the tree this year. All the bottom branches were bare, so I had to buy garland and zip tie it on. When we went to put the ornaments on the artificial branches/leaves were falling off. So a friend of mine got together with a friend and they have set up a GoFundMe page to help buy another tree for next year. Artificial Christmas trees are expensive, but to me, coming in and having the giant Christmas tree is what makes this place unique. I will start posting the GoFundMe link in the next couple of days. For those interested this is the link to the page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/farleys-wonderland

One thing that we do loose every year and that is Christmas tree’s. They’re outside for so long that they take a beating and because of my being temporarily disabled this winter they were out for longer than usual – some still are. Every year at the end of ChrIstmas, I spend a lot of time looking for 12′ plus artificial Christmas tree’s and every year it’s getting harder. There’s not a lot of companies anymore and the stores only carry what they think they can sell. It used to be that everyone would have a lot of surplus and then discount it. Now, everyone is sold out before Xmas. I think everyone went into the Halloween business, they have so many neat things’ especially in the animatronics and they’re affordable.

 

This past year I started making our own Christmas lights; it’s costly. But, when a light goes out it’s just that light and it does not effect the others. I just threw away a set of C9’s yesterday that claimed if one light goes out it that it will not effect the others – so why did half the light strand go out? I spent over a few hours trying to find the bad light and never found it and had to throw it away.

I will be adding more lights to the fairy garden and our ferns that I planted last year are now growing and looking good. I had to redo a lot of the solar lighting – I converted them over to ac so they now have plugs. I’ve bought so many solar lights and they just do not last – they look good, but they’re to expensive not to last.