Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Please fill out our form located at http://submit.boisechristmaslights.org/ - if the form is closed, we are not accepting submissions at that time. Stay tuned to our socials or subscribe to our Substack for updates!
Yes. We wipe the map clean each year, so if you want to be on it again, you need to submit your display again. This gives visitors greater peace of mind that a display is actually up and running for the season, instead of taking a gamble and driving to an "unconfirmed" listing from last year, where the people may have moved away or stopped doing a display.
We try to update listings at least once a week on all platforms (map, website, and mobile app). Since we update things manually, we’re at the mercy of Apple getting updates approved in a timely manner.
This is a fair question, and the answer isn’t so simple.
For example, some people only want to visit the light shows synced to music, and some people don’t like the light shows at all. So, we don’t exclude any submissions, but we do require at least one photo, a description of your display with your submission, and you need to tell us if it’s synced to music or not (or if it’s a walk-thru haunt for Halloween). This allows visitors and map viewers to determine for themselves if your home is worth going to.
The best advice I can give is to take an honest look at your display, and ask yourself if you would be willing to drive out of your way to see it. If you are willing to, odds are good that someone else is willing to as well.
For storage purposes, we ask that you keep your submission to 3 photos, so make sure your 3 photos look good! However, if you really, really want more photos, email the photos as well as your address to submit@boisechristmaslights.org and we can add it to the map and website, but not on the mobile app (that has a 3 photo hard limit). Most people were only submitting 3 photos anyways, so this won’t impact most people.
We can manually attach a video of your display to our map and website, but not on the mobile app. The submission form doesn’t accept video, so email us your video and address of your display to submit@boisechristmaslights.org so we can add it. If your video has copyrighted music, we may not be able to attach it - we’re at the mercy of YouTube on that one, unfortunately.
On our Events page, there is a submission link. Click on that link to submit information about your event.
I wanted to have a more central resource for finding Christmas displays, rather than searching on Google and going to several different websites. And it turns out that other people really wanted that too! So I do this each year as a public service for the Treasure Valley, a community that I have lived in nearly my entire life (I am a proud Idaho native), and love very dearly.
This project does take a lot of time to maintain, as well as yearly web hosting costs. And with the mobile app, we now have developer fees we need to pay as well. The best way to support this project is to make a donation. We accept donations via Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, and Buy Me a Coffee. Venmo, PayPal and Cash App are preferred since they don't take fees. You can also become a paid subscriber to our Substack newsletter to help us financially: https://boisechristmaslights.substack.com/
We have a really good group of decorators here in Boise that are willing to help you out in person or virtually. You can join our Facebook group Behind The Lights - Boise.
We don't sell or install Christmas lights, and we don't have a list of preferred vendors.
I've ran into issues with pages and websites stealing my content without attribution. Since that's a crappy thing to do, I watermark images. That way, if people still want to use the images on their content (which is fine) it will at least give attribution back to me.
We desire to have a good working relationship with all local media! Feel free to embed the map into your website, or share it however you’d like. All we ask is when you use it, please mention it is from Boise Christmas Lights, and provide a link to our website or tag our social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok.
I’m very aware that stories about Christmas lights generate a lot of clicks for websites. I hope you will consider sharing the love back with us for our efforts by donating to our project. Thank you! 😊
Yes, that's fine. All I ask is that you either leave the watermark and/or include credit to our project (@BoiseChristmasLights, BoiseChristmasLights.org, etc) so we get proper attribution. Thanks!