ST. GEORGE, Utah — An 80-foot digital Christmas tree towering over St. George is bringing holiday magic to southern Utah, complete with animated light shows synchronized to Christmas music that drivers can tune into on their FM radios.
The massive display at Dixie Power's building in the Bloomington area features 7,500 LED lights arranged in 48 strands that create programmable animations visible from Interstate 15.
"It's got about 7,500 lights in it. There's 48 strands that go around the base of this tree. And the cool thing about it is it's animated. We can program it to put any scene on there that we want," said Steven Young, Dixie Power's communications specialist and lead programmer for the tree's animations.
Young said their digital tree is the tallest in Utah, surpassing the 70-foot display at the Outlets in Lehi. The tallest digital tree in the nation is a 100-foot tree in McAllen, Texas.
The installation requires two to three days of work by Dixie Power linemen, who truck in an 85-foot pole and raise a curtain filled with LED light strands around it.
"I was the one that actually was in the bucket truck … and that's fun. It's big, it's heavy, it's an interesting experience," said Travis Lathim, a Dixie Power lineman who helps construct the display each year.
"I think the coolest thing about the tree is the Santa up in the middle of the tree. It's actually got one of our climbing belts on it," said Lee Cox, another Dixie Power lineman.
The programming work happens behind the scenes, with Young's team spending hours after dark testing animations to ensure everything runs perfectly.
"You could spend a couple hours coding a song or you could spend several weeks. One of our people who is new this year, I think she spent just over a week and a half coding the song that we'll be playing this year," Young said. "It's a little bit like video editing. We use some software that actually allows us to edit it like a video timeline... The whole tree runs off of just a little tiny micro SD card that keeps it running."
The team adds new songs each year and programs additional animations for the Dixie Power building itself.
"We spend lots of hours here after dark, sometimes 2, 3 a.m., so that the community is not seeing us testing the tree. But we want to make sure that everything's perfect for the day of the tree lighting," Young said.
For the linemen who build the display, the project offers a rewarding change of pace from their regular duties.
"It's nice to have a change of pace to do something a little different," said Elliot Dutton, a Dixie Power lineman. "It's fun to ... have our part in setting it up when we bring our kids out the night we light the Christmas tree. To be able to tell our own kids, 'Yeah, I helped set this up,' and it's fun for them."
The tree lighting ceremony takes place Tuesday night with Santa, donuts and hot chocolate. The display will remain lit nightly through the end of the year.
