Find Houston-area christmas lighting companies — and see which ones we've confirmed with the business.

Hiring a Christmas lighting company in Houston

Unlicensed trade, seasonal by definition, and the single most important thing to know is when to book.

Book in September, not December

Good installers in the Houston area fill their calendar well before Thanksgiving. By the first week of December the companies still taking new work are largely the ones nobody booked. If you are reading this in November, call anyway — but plan next year for late summer.

The corollary: many companies offer an early-booking discount, and it is real, because it lets them plan crews and order materials.

The question that decides the price: whose lights?

Two models, and they are very different purchases:

• Company-owned lights (rental/lease). They supply commercial-grade product, install, maintain during the season, take it down and store it. Higher annual cost, no storage problem, and if a run fails in December they come fix it.
• You own the lights. Higher first-year cost, lower cost thereafter, and storage and replacement are yours. Ask whether they still handle takedown and whether the lights are custom-cut to your roofline — which makes them worth keeping.

Neither is wrong. Just know which quote you are comparing, because they are not comparable numbers.

What should be in every quote

• Takedown and removal date range. This is the line people forget and then argue about in February.
• Mid-season service — if a section goes out, is a callback included or billed?
• What is being lit — roofline only, or trees, columns, wreaths, walkways? Trees are priced separately and vary hugely by size.
• Power. How many circuits does the display need, and do you have them? Overloaded circuits are the most common cause of a display half-working.

Safety, because this is roof work in the dark

Ask about insurance and whether the crew is employees or day labour. Steep or two-storey rooflines are genuinely dangerous work, and this is a trade with a lot of seasonal hiring.

Permanent lighting

Increasingly, companies here also install permanent architectural lighting — track-mounted LEDs that sit discreetly on the roofline year-round and change colour by app. Higher up-front cost, no annual install, and it covers Halloween, the Fourth of July and game days too. Worth asking about if you install every year regardless.