Borrow these Award-Winning Tips from Our Christmas Decoration Photo Op Contest

Every year, Christmas Designers holds a photo op contest that gives holiday decorators the chance to show off their arrangements. Contests are a great opportunity to spread Christmas cheer with your own display designed to amaze—and the spirit of competition is a nice motivator for taking an arrangement to the next level. Our photo op contest gives us a chance to connect with our community of Christmas enthusiasts and share the joy of Christmas lighting with our audience and contest followers. We also give out gift card prizes to 3 or more winners each year, allowing them to level up their Christmas decorations for next season!

Why do we have our contest? How do people win?

We love the creative, fun ways that people express themselves through Christmas lighting. Our top awards typically go to outdoor Christmas light displays around the front of a home, because:

1. They’re the most shareable and community spirit-oriented.
2. They show off DIY lighting skills using light line, C9 bulbs, and other beloved commercial Christmas light products.
3. The front of every home is so unique. The choices you make on how to enhance your home with Christmas lighting takes vision, enthusiasm and design discernment. We consider all of these choices when looking at our finalists for those top gift card prizes. No matter what type of home or neighborhood you live in, anyone can create an amazing Christmas display using clever product choices. We look for those gems when evaluating winners.

However, we also award great indoor displays too, because great Christmas photos can be taken anywhere around the home! When it comes to rewarding the best Christmas displays, we don’t want to be exclusive to outdoor displays only. Not everyone has the physical or financial ability to decorate the outside of their home. Therefore, people who live in apartments or homes without front yards are eligible to win prizes.

Dos and Don'ts of Contest-Winning Christmas Light Decorating

Dive into these award-winning tips in the form of do’s-and-don’ts that will help you transform your display into a jaw-dropping spectacle ready to compete with the biggest and brightest displays!

1. Do Use Color Strategy in your Christmas Display

Your display will greatly benefit from a color strategy because color is a deciding factor in the look and feel of an arrangement. Your color strategy is made up of one or more color schemes, and the decisions of where you put which color. Holiday color strategy schemes can include classics such as red and green or blue and white, but you can also experiment with combos such as green and white.

A color strategy in action shows coordination where it makes sense in terms of structure and placement. Consider alternating solid colors on greenery, such as red on one bush to green on the next. You could also wrap your tree trunks in one color and drape the canopies in another. And a great way to freshen up roofline lighting? Use color on the peaks, and use ridge clips to secure those lights like a pro.

2. Do Think of Night Vs. Day When Lighting Your Home for the Holidays

A versatile arrangement that covers all of the bases looks great day and night. You can imagine what a display might consist of when it’s configured for only one time of day: a display only for day would consist mostly of standing decorations and greenery, contrasted by a display made for night being mostly or only Christmas lights.

The best way to bring balance to your Christmas arrangement is by applying pre-lit greenery. Select wreathes or garland (or both) in pre-lit varieties with high quality Christmas lights. Give your pre-lit greenery real appeal by putting bows and ornaments on them that display beautifully during the day.

3. Do Use Professional Grade Christmas Decorations and Supplies

If you want the best looking Christmas display you can make, then we can’t stress enough the importance of high-quality supplies—which you’ll only get from using professional grade products. When building an impressive lighting display, there’s nothing worse than having slightly mismatched bulbs because you bought retail.

Pro-grade lights are better than retail-grade lights in every way—even on price in the long-run. Pro-grade lights last longer, meaning that your dollar actually goes farther over retail lights. And the presentation! Pro-grade lights are built with higher quality components for a better presentation than retail-grade lights, making your display a dazzling Christmas marvel! Check out our expert explainer for a full breakdown of how pro-grade lights shine over retail-grade.

And when it’s time to get that pro-grade resupply for your contest-worthy Christmas display, ditch any incandescent lights you may have and go all LED Christmas lights. While incandescent lights can be nostalgic and charming, LED lights are better than ever and outperform incandescent lights across the board, from brightness to lifespan.

4. Do Think of Creative and Unique Ways to Light Your Roofline with Christmas Lights

Roofline lighting pronounces the majesty of Christmas decorating all around your house. Implement creative designs to take your roofline lighting to new heights. Here’s a shining example of a unique spin on roofline lighting: our 2nd place contest winner from 2022 incorporated brilliant “drapes” on her roofline light strings.

Some ideas for creative applications to roofline lighting include using two different bulbs or lights, such as C9 bulbs and icicle lights. The All Application Clip can support multiple lines, bringing creative concepts for roofline lighting to life. Another way to give a roofline some more Christmas spirit is to use alternating colored bulbs, such as red and white.

For the fundamentals or lighting your roofline like a pro, watch our expert tutorial.

5. Do Create Christmas Light Loops along Your Walkways

Upgrade the walkways around your yard with light loops. Most installers use PVC pipe outlined with string lights. You can paint the PVC pipe to match your color scheme, or to contrast against the lights so that they stand out more.

Light loops play a big role in creating a radiant lighting wonderland. Line them horizontally around your yard for a breathtaking boundary that leads the eye along the yard. This adds a fun interactive element for visitors and people who walk by your house.

If you’re feeling more ambitious, consider loops over your sidewalk for guests to walk under: these become gateways to an enchanting Christmastime domain. Make sure loops that arch over your sidewalks are stabilized and secure so that they don’t fall on anyone.

6. Don’t Wrap Your Tree Canopies with Mini Christmas Light Strings

We’re passionate about helping you create the best contest-ready display that you can, so we’re taking a firm stance on this don’t. Unless you’re decorating an evergreen tree, don’t wrap your tree canopies with mini string lights. Tree canopies wrapped in mini string lights never look good because it’s nearly impossible to wrap the strings neatly and consistently. Unsightly applications take away from your other great installation work, and this is no exception.

To light tree canopies, we recommend using light line with 9” to 24” spacing using bulbs such as G30s, G40s, or G50s. Leave some spacing between lights for larger bulb sets to give a professional look to this application, and to help hide the “strings” so you won’t see lines of lights.

7. Don’t Forget the Magic of All-White Christmas Lighting

As we mentioned in our first tip, do use color strategy. And all-white lighting can be a magical color strategy. In fact, many of our top prize winners chose warm white or pure white for their lighting concepts, and the results spoke for themselves!

White Christmas lights are classic. All-white lighting displays harness the brilliance of lights in a way that no other tone can, making them just as interesting as colorful or even RGB lights.

Some of our favorite looks for lighting include nice, tidy lines that accentuate the architecture of a home. Pair white lights on a home with white lights on greenery, and you’ve got the full package for an all-white lighting arrangement that gains attention, and possibly a top spot in our contest.

8. With C9 Christmas Lights, Don’t Ignore the Peaks of Your Home

Many decorators leave the peaks of the home bare, but award-winning decorators are strategic with all of their decorating space. Think of the peaks of your house as an extension of the canvas that you make your Christmas decorating masterpiece upon.

Roof peaks are ideal for 2D decorations such as lit wreaths and LED snowflakes. C9 lighting on peaks elevates the look of lighting on a house, and it’s a fantastic complement to roofline and perimeter lighting. Align the bulb on the peak using ridge clips for a professional look. Consider a creative color combination on your peaks, like blue-red with warm white bulbs, or try an accent color that picks up a light color being used in the yard.

9. Don’t go overboard with Christmas Inflatables or Distracting Characters

We call this the ”trinkets and trash” approach: using inflatables and other distracting characters around the yard to populate a display. Although these types of decorations can add a certain charm, they do so at the cost of cheapening the overall look of your display.

Many people enjoy inflatables because they’re easy to set up and portray familiar Christmas characters in a fun way, but unfortunately, most of them are retail-grade and look the part when they’re blown up against professional lighting jobs.

A few strategic pieces can be okay in the right display, though. Sometimes, adding characters to your scene can help tell a story, bringing a sense of intrigue. But in many cases, inflatables and characters end up taking attention away from the look of quality that comes from your hard work in your lighting applications and other decorated areas.

We love supplying decorators with high-quality lights and decorations, and we love helping bring it all together. If you’ve got questions on making your next holiday display (maybe for our photo-op contest), then we’ve got answers! Email us at [email protected] or call 1-800-391-5280 and get support from one of our qualified Christmas Designers today!