Best Christmas Yard Displays Sought For 2021 Tour O' Lights

ILLINOIS — If you've spent days or weeks painstakingly hanging strands of lights on your house, trees and shrubs, or hauling multiple figurines out to your lawn, Patch wants to hear from you.

We'll be compiling our annual holiday Tour o' Lights, where readers can tour the best holiday light displays in the Chicago area. We’re giving away a $100 Amazon gift card to the best twinkling light display chosen by your Patch editors. To be considered, send us pictures and a description of your holiday winter wonderland by Dec. 10.

We’ll keep updating the list every Friday through Dec. 24. Due to the popularity of our Halloween and Christmas light tours, we’re going to separate submissions by COUNTY, so we don’t overload our content management system.

Remember there is still a pandemic out there, so if you're going to get out of your car and walk around, please wear a mask, practice social distancing and bring hand sanitizer.

Send your photos and/or links to videos of your Christmas light display to lorraine.swanson@patch.com. We prefer that the homeowner submit his or her own yard, or an immediate neighbor or close relative. A good time to photograph your display is at dusk. Please include the following information:

• The exact address of the lawn display, including your COUNTY.
• The dates and hours when your display will be available for viewing, so people aren't ringing your doorbell or bothering your neighbors in the middle of the night.
• Your display's name, if it has one. (Or we can help you make one up.)
• Tell us about any special effects, such as singing trees, stuffed reindeer, live actors, etc.
• A link to your Facebook page or website, if you have one.
• A phone number (not for publication) in case Patch needs to contact you.
• A photo of the display.

IMPORTANT STUFF: Only submit photos you have taken yourself or are authorized to post on Patch. By submitting a photo, you're giving Patch permission to publish it for this feature and future stories.

We do our best to verify each address; please don't submit a home you recall from five or ten years ago. That person may no longer be decorating their house, and we don't want people wasting gas.
Patch will keep updating the list through Dec. 24, so keep an eye on your daily morning newsletters and the Patch Facebook pages. (Wait a second, you haven't subscribed to your local Patch newsletter? Get started here.)

Unleash your inner Clark Griswold so the rest of us can enjoy it. Questions? Contact Lorraine Swanson by email at lorraine.swanson@patch.com.