Best Christmas Displays Sought For The 2020 Patch 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.

To say that 2020 has been a strange year is an understatement. While kids may not be able to sit on Santa’s lap this year, and our favorite community traditions and celebrations have been postponed or gone virtual, we can still drive around and look at the twinkling lights.

We’ll be compiling our annual holiday Tour o' Lights, where readers can tour the best holiday light displays in the Chicago area. Patch received over 200 submissions for our Halloween list, so many that we broke our content management system where all the Patch magic happens. We expect people to go large this year. Patch is going to do better this time around and will be sorting submissions by COUNTY.

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

Send us some photos and/or links to videos of your Christmas light display. (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.
• 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• A phone number (not for publication) in case Patch needs to contact you.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.) #SaveChristmas2020

Don't be shy! Share your creativity so the rest of us can enjoy it. Questions? Contact Lorraine Swanson by email at lorraine.swanson@patch.com.