Cobb teen is really plugged in to Christmas

One teenager + 65 man hours + 13,575 lights = Camden Place Christmas Cheer.

The day after Halloween, Michael Almeter, 16, begins stringing lights from the top of his family’s two-story house to the edge of Worlidge Court in east Cobb County. A flip of the switch the night after Thanksgiving signals that the Christmas season has begun.

“I always can count on him to get me in the Christmas spirit when I come home from Thanksgiving in Florida,” said Karen Morabito, his Camden Place subdivision neighbor.

Michael’s bright lights draw crowds. “It’s popular enough that I warn my kids that it’s Christmas and to be careful because more cars are in the cul de sac to see Michael’s Christmas display,” Morabito said.

It all began at a garage sale when he was 6. Michael bought a box of Christmas lights for $1. One string of lights from that box is still part of his holiday decorating 10 years later, said the sophomore at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School, where he is manager of the football team.

The family decorates for holidays year-round, but Christmas is Michael’s alone. Three years ago his parents, John and Carol Almeter, stepped aside and he went solo designing and installing the Christmas decorations.

Michael finances the project out of his $20 weekly allowance and money from household chores. He replaces burned out bulbs every two years and shuns expensive LED lights. When he won a contest at school, he asked that his $15 prize be a gift certificate to buy more Christmas lights, his mother said.

He dots the lawn with a plastic Santa Claus, snowman and reindeer and prefers the old-fashioned molded plastic figures.

“I really enjoy the blown molds,” he said. “They seem sort of classic Christmas. Sadly, they’re getting harder and harder to find. The major company that made them shut down this year.”

He was excited and surprised when his sister, Xavier University student Cristin Almeter, gave him a molded plastic Santa and snowman for his collection.

“I do want to add to the display every year. It keeps people coming back,” Michael said. “I would dare say I will not be stringing more lights because I’m running out of places to put them. One thing I’ve always wanted, and I haven’t figured out a way to do it, is to put Santa and his reindeer on the roof. That would be really fun.”

Michael is proudest of the system he’s devised for installing lights on the roof, since he is forbidden to use the ladder without someone else around. “It took me seven years to figure out how to do it,” he said. “My method is an 11-foot pole and special clips.”

He’s pleased, too, that his display uses only 700 feet of extension cord because he knows people who use 3,000 feet. The Almeters have installed exterior electrical outlets for the display, which adds about $40 to the December electric bill.

Things electrical have appealed to Michael since he was an infant, his mother said. Nightly, he hunkers down in his basement talking to people around the world as amateur radio operator W4MJA.

Of the 336 countries amateur radio operators recognize around the world, Michael has talked to 1,600 people in 168 of them. He is adding six more antennas to the one in his backyard to participate in the February talk around the world event.

“He knows how to drive, but he doesn’t drive because it would cut into his radio time,” his mother said. “He’s talking to a 7 a.m. group in the car when I’m driving him to school.”

As for his Christmas display, “We’ve just told him more is not necessarily better,” she said. “It’s over the top, but it’s Michael.”