"The Schwippies" refers to the five members of the household in which this Christmas Tree lives. These four members are: And for the record: Schwippy is NOT our last name.

Brian, Mr. Schwippy, is very inventive and is constantly working on various electronic projects. He prides himself in being a geek, and this is just another idea that popped into his head one day, and he created it. There really isn't more to it than that; his mind is simply amazing. If you would like to see some of his other projects, check out www.plasma2002.com.

Yes, we promise you, its all real. You really are controlling the lights, (along with the other users on the site at that time), and the webcam feed really is live. They are really turning on and off in our house when you turn them on and off. Occasionally you will see a cat walk by, or one of us humans. Occasionally you will see us do funny, random things because people still don't believe we are really live, such as holding up signs with their names or doing jumping jacks.

There could be a couple of possible causes for this. The mostly likely reason is that there are many other people currently controlling our tree, just like you are. The lights can only turn on and off so fast, and can only take one command at a time. That's just the way the cookie crumbles. Also, our controls were programmed with and therefore work best with the Firefox browser. If you are using another browser (such as Internet Explorer 6) and are having problems, try downloading Mozilla Firefox at http://www.GetFirefox.com.

Probably not, unless we're really bored. You'd have to bug either SchwippyBrian or SchwippySarah in the chat room until one of us gives in.

Our home is in Southern California. We live in the Pacific Standard Timezone.

Basically, it uses the x10 system. For those of you who aren't geeks and have no clue what that is: each of the colors of lights is hooked up to a separate numbered receiver. The computer has a "program" which, when you press red on, sends a wireless signal to the receiver on the red lights, telling them to turn on. If you'd like more information than that, or want to know how to hook up your own system like it, you can visit Brian's write-up at www.plasma2002.com/tree.

Party Mode is the new special feature for Christmas 2009. It is only available to those who have donated $5 or more to the Schwippy Christmas Tree Tip Jar. This is to give a little extra special gift to those who have shown us their appreciation by donating. Once you have donated, you should receive an email within 24 hours with information on how to activate Party Mode. Remember, Party Mode works best at night and with your speakers turned on, so if you have uses, wait until it's dark in our house :)

Just start typing in the chat box to the right of the Christmas Tree! If you'd like to change your username, simply type /nick username where 'username' is whatever you'd like it to be. In the chat room, you must have a unique username that has not been registered with ustream. If the login box appears, someone else has already registered with that name. Try adding some random numbers to the end of your name. If you'd like, you can register with ustream and keep your name for eternity.

Sure! If you have an IRC client, you can use it to access the Schwippy Tree chat room.
The server is: chat1.ustream.tv
The room is: #schwippy-tree

We recently changed rooms, so if you were connected last year or at the start of this season, make sure you've changed to the new room, #schwippy-tree, with a dash.

They are the administrators and moderators who help us keep watch over the tree. If we choose to add any other close friends as mods, we'll add their name above.

When many people are in the chat room, it can get a little chaotic. We may choose to turn on slow mode, which means that you can only send one message per minute. This will keep our chatroom from becoming overly flooded in high traffic times. We hope to not have to use this mode too often.

No, you can't, don't bother asking. If anyone else (besides those listed above) is carrying the name "Schwippy" in the chat room, they are either frauds, or friends or family that think they are funny. Sarah, Brian, Matt, Dan, Maeg, and Anth are the only people that will ever carry mod privileges. If we choose to add any other close friends as mods, we'll add their name above.

As of now, yes. We probably will not be broadcasting much longer after Christmas has passed. After the site is taken down, you can always find us at www.schwippy.com, or in the Schwippy Forums, just in case you find it absolutely necessary to keep in touch.

First of all, no. Second of all, no. Third of all, stop trying to burn our house down.

Unfortunately, the train will not be back for Christmas 2009. It caused too many issues, derailed frequently, and posed a fire hazard. We hope you won't miss trying to burn our home down and run our cats over too much.

If you haven't been here since Christmas 2007, you may notice a complete change of scenery. We moved out of our little 2 bedroom apartment and bought a huge 4 bedroom/3 bath house in May of 2008. The tree is located in our entry/living room. The room is pretty empty, so we figured it'd be a nice place to set up the tree.

Very few people know how it all started, and we'd like to keep it that way. The meaning and the origin are not as important as what it's become, and who's been affected by it.

Okay, now you can go ahead and ask around in the chat room!