How to Get Your Christmas Lights Up This Year Without Anyone in Your Family on a Ladder

My operations manager, Ignacio, got 7 staples in his head on a Christmas lights install at a customer’s house. He wasn’t the one climbing. He was the one holding the ladder.

The stabilizer, the arm that holds the top of the ladder off the gutter, wasn’t attached right. It came off and hit him. It cost us $1,500 to get him treated. We paid it, and we fixed the problem. The stabilizer gets properly attached to the extension ladder before anybody goes up.

I’m telling you this because Ignacio does ladder work for a living. He had a partner. He was standing on the ground. And he still ended up bleeding at a customer’s house.

Now think about the way most of us hang lights. A Saturday in late November. A ladder from the garage. A bin of strands that worked last year, mostly. A two-story roofline. Your spouse holding the bottom while the kids watch from the yard.

About 14,900 people went to the ER for holiday decorating injuries in the 2023 season, and more than 40% of those were falls. Most of them were probably careful too.

Here’s what changes when you hand it off. You stop spending your weekend on the roof. Nobody you love climbs anything. And if something goes wrong, it’s on us, not you. When Ignacio got hurt, the homeowner didn’t pay a thing.

One of our clients, David, has always gone above and beyond with his lights. Before he handed it over, the lights took his weekends. Once he gave it to us, he got those weekends back and got to actually enjoy his lights. That’s the trade. You keep the house that makes the neighbors slow down. You lose the ladder.

Here’s how it works with us. The first year, you buy the lights and the labor. We use commercial-grade LEDs, not big-box strands, and we add a photocell timer so the lights come on at dusk by themselves. When the season is over, we take everything down, label it, and pack it in bins for you to store. Every year after that, you pay labor only, at 60% of the first-year price, because you already own the lights.

Most installs run $1,000 to $2,000 with takedown. For a lot of families that’s less than one trip to urgent care, and a lot less than a broken wrist in December.

If you’ve been the one on the ladder every year, this is your year off. Your kids still get the first night with the house lit up. You just get to watch it from the driveway with them.

Lights projects book up, so earlier is better. Call us at (817) 484-8522 or request an estimate at denmarklawn.com, and we’ll get you a number for your house.