If you want to brighten the season with holiday lights but don’t want to reenact
Chevy Chase’s lighting
nightmare in National Lampoon
Christmas Vacation, don’t worry.
Now you can hire someone to per­form the task for you.

Kelly Fitzsimmons, owner of Chicago-based Light Up Your Holidays, and her crew of roofers, landscapers and painters do all of the planning, Decorating and climbing required to hang holiday lights. The company’s services start. at $400, and they even remove the decorations once the sea­son has concluded.Also, avoiding the physical dangers associated with tJ1e job requires some skill. “Depending on the weather, even the easiest house can be difficult wltl the winds,” says Fitzsinimons. “It’s so dangerous in the winter to be putting up lights.• While none of her employ­ees have had an accident on the job, Fitzsimmons made sure her company was insured to protect her clients and her employees.

Light Up Your Holidays usually hangs 12 to 60 strands of lights on a home and then adds more to green­ery or landscaping -using up to 75 strands. At 50 lights per strand, it adds up to a lot of lights (3,750 to be exact). “If one person is going to do the house, it typically takes eight to 10 hours,” Fitzsimmons says, but her crew of four or five people can speed things up. She uses only mini Italian lights (the type used to deco­rate Chicago’s Magnificent Mile) and rents the strands to cus­tomers, who can choose red, white, green, blue or multi-colored.
While they don’t sell decorations, Light Up Your Holidays can hang just about any kind of decor that a customer owns, such as garland or wreaths. Since the cost of every job depends on the size of the home and number of decora­tions used, the company offers free estimates.

Fitzsimmons encourages clients to call her in October or November to avoid the Christmass rush, but she can still do the job in December. Her lights have decorated the modest and the elevagant, and this year she hopes to decorate the homes of some single mothers at no charge. She is seeking donations and recom­mendations of families that could use her service. As many might expect, the task of hanging lights comes with some sea­sonal hazards. One of Fitzsimmons’ toughest jobs took place during a snowstorm; her crew worked until 9 p.m. determined to get the job done. when a single light sho1ted and took every strand wilh iL “We had to go through each sting,” she recalls. “It took six hours with the three of us working.”I do avoid damage to homes,
Fitzsimmons uses staples rather than nails to hang lights. I lot glue and clip For someone whose work depends on holiday spirit Fitzsimmons is often put off by the commercialism of the season. Her job, however, gives her something to celebrate.
“It’s different from the hustle and bustle of people shopping and trying to get the best gift,” she says of her job. “This is more like a celebratory way of spreading holiday cheer because the neighbors also get to enjoy this. It brings a mile to people’s faces – they really feel proud of their home. That is, for me, tl1e essence of family and the score of the holidays.”