Christmas lights contest judging: a route, a score sheet and a neighbors' vote
In a Christmas lights contest the judges drive past houses at night, so every house gets under a minute and the order of the route decides how fresh the judges are. This page has a 100-point sheet, awards, a numbered route that keeps names and addresses off the scorecard, route-day logistics and a link vote for the neighbors.
Skip the paper sheet: make a phone scorecard in about a minute.
Score sheet for lit houses
Five criteria, 100 points. The weights are my suggestion. Impact from the street gets 25, because judges see each house for under a minute from a slow car. The contests I opened name the same qualities in different words. The City of Blacktown in Australia says its judging is anonymous, with points for appeal, originality and overall presentation. In Idaho, the coordinator told a local newsroom that judges want something new and different, since repeat styles have already won.
| Criterion | Max | Low scores | High scores | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall impact from the street | 25 | Hard to notice from the car. | Stops the car. You see it before you read the address. | |
| Creativity and originality | 20 | The same strings and inflatables as the neighbors. | A new idea: a scene, a hand-built piece, a story told with light. | |
| Use of lights | 20 | Tangled, uneven, bulbs out. | Even rows and clean lines, with color that follows a plan and lights that follow the shape of the house. | |
| Theme and cohesion | 20 | A bit of everything with no link. | One look carried across roof, yard and porch. | |
| Animation, music or effect | 15 | None, or a flicker that distracts. | Timed to a song or a sequence, readable from the road and not too loud for the neighbors. | |
| Total | 100 | Stop number: ______ Judge: ______ | ||
Print one sheet per judge, with a pen and a small light.
Categories and awards
The Idaho contest gave awards for Best Animation, Most Colorful, Most Traditional, Spirit of the Season, Best Commercial/Business, a Clark Griswold Award and Best Overall, plus a special mention for the street or cul-de-sac with the most decorated houses. Blacktown adds an Encouragement Award for properties without a major prize, and a Best Street that needs at least three entries from the same street. For a neighborhood or HOA I would use (my suggestion):
- Best overall
- The top total on the judges' sheet.
- Most creative
- The highest creativity row. A hand-built piece beats a store-bought one.
- Best animation or music
- Lights timed to a song or a sequence, judged from the road with the sound at a level the neighbors accept.
- Most traditional
- White lights, wreaths and a lit tree in the window.
- Best street or cul-de-sac
- Three or more neighboring houses with a shared look, scored as one stop on the route.
- Neighbors' choice
- The highest average on the link vote.
The route and the numbers
Judges see the houses in the dark from a car, so the route decides what the judges see. Make it a loop with no U-turns.
- Residents sign themselves up and give a house number. That is all scoring needs. No resident names go on the judges' sheet.
- Give each house a stop number in driving order. The printed route sheet for the driver pairs stop 1 with its house number and street. The scorecard lists only "Stop 1", "Stop 2" and so on.
- Keep the addresses on paper. The voting link then shows no addresses to anyone who finds it.
- Drive the loop once in daylight and time it. Fifteen stops in 45 minutes is a good pace for fresh eyes (my suggestion).
Route-day logistics
- Lights on during judging. The Idaho contest asked for lights on from 6 to 11 p.m. during its judging week, and Blacktown marks a property ineligible if its display is off when the judges arrive. Pick one window, say 6 to 9 p.m. on a named evening, and tell the residents.
- Driver drives, passenger scores. Each car has a driver and a scorer. The scorer holds the sheet or taps the ratings.
- Judge from the road. Judges stay in the car or on the public sidewalk and never step onto a lawn. Hazards on, slow, no stopping in a lane.
- Rain date. Name a backup evening on the entry form, so a storm does not cancel the contest.
- Safety. A display that blocks a sidewalk or runs a cord across a path gets a note before judging. I treat that as pass/fail, apart from the points.
Neighbors' choice with a link
A people's choice gets the neighborhood into the loop. Post the voting link and a QR code on the HOA page, in the neighborhood group and on a sign at the street entrance. People drive or stroll the route at their own pace and rate the stops they saw, 1 to 5. Skipped stops stay unrated. The app has no accounts, so it cannot check that a household votes once. Treat it as a friendly pick and keep the main prize on the judges' scores. Open voting for the evenings the lights are on, and close it a day before the awards.
Ties
The link vote ranks by average rating first. When two stops share an average, the one rated by more people goes ahead, and stops with the same average and the same number of ratings share the place. For the judges' paper scores, add up each judge's total and settle a tie on the impact row. If that is level too, the judges drive past both houses once more and decide by hand. More on tie-breaks. Put the rule in writing before the first stop.
How the phone vote works
Type the entries in the order of their numbers. Guests open one link, see Entry 1, Entry 2 and so on, and rate each from 1 to 5. The ranking appears with the names when you close voting. A paper sheet suits a judging panel, and the link suits a people's choice vote.
Your guests open one link and tap 1 to 5 for each entry. You print a table card with the QR code. Free, no account for you or your guests, deleted after 30 days.
Start a Christmas lights scorecard. The title is filled in; add the stops by number and share the link with the neighbors.
Create a scorecard See a sample contest