Carroll News Best Christmas Lights Display: How Voting Works & How to Win

A closed, two-edition photo contest, read for exactly what it is

Best Christmas Lights Display is not a large, long-running ballot. Carroll News has confirmed two editions, 2024 and 2025, and the most recent one is already closed, having run December 2 through December 29, 2025. Anyone weighing whether to enter next season is weighing a young, currently inactive contest, not one with a decade of past rounds to study.

Nothing on Carroll News's listing states whether a third round is coming, or when. That is a fair gap for a two-edition contest to still carry, and it means the live platform page, not this one, is the last word on whether the format returns.

A picture contest, not a name-on-a-ballot format

Carroll News runs this specifically as a UGC photo-voting contest, Second Street's label for a format where entrants submit an actual photo, in this case of a holiday lights display, rather than simply having their name added to a list. That distinction matters for anyone planning to enter: a strong Best Christmas Lights Display push starts with a usable picture, not a pitch.

Hillsville is the market Carroll News's own listing is tied to, and the current page does not widen that beyond what the platform states. A household or business near Hillsville deciding whether its own display counts is working from the same limited information anyone else reading this page has.

The 2024 and 2025 rounds sit on two separate Second Street web addresses rather than one page that simply updates each year. That split is common on Second Street once a contest reaches a second season, and it means an old link from 2024 will not show whatever comes after the 2025 closing date.

Carroll News runs more than one Second Street contest

Best Christmas Lights Display sits alongside a separate Carroll News program, the Carroll News Gemini Awards, on its own Second Street listing. Being featured in one carries no automatic standing in the other; they are two distinct contests under one publisher, not two names for the same result.

None of these six share a results date or a judging pool with the Christmas lights contest, including the one carrying the same masthead. A supporter mixing them up would be backing the wrong listing entirely.

Distance is worth checking too. Best of Arlington, Best of Charlottesville, the Daily Progress Charlottesville Readers' Choice ballot and the two BroadwayWorld programs each answer to their own region and their own publisher, none of which overlaps with Carroll News's Hillsville-tied photo contest by name, by platform, or by schedule.

What entering a two-edition photo contest actually calls for

With voting closed and no live window showing, the useful move right now is preparation rather than an immediate push. A clear, well-lit photo of the display is the entry itself in this format, so anyone planning to compete next December is better served getting that ready early than waiting for a round to open and scrambling.

Once a round is live, asking actual neighbors and past visitors to view and support a specific photo carries more weight on a contest this size than a single mass message would. A photo-voting format still risks the same problem any online contest does: activity that looks manufactured rather than genuine can put an entry at risk, and a listing only two editions deep has less history to absorb that kind of flag.

A picture of a lights display also ages differently than a business name does. Whatever image goes up when the next round opens should show the display as it actually looks that season, since a photo carried over from a prior December is a weaker entry than a fresh one taken specifically for whichever round Carroll News eventually reopens.

is buying votes legal lays out that boundary in plain terms, and award-vote campaign planning applies to a nominate-and-vote format even when, as here, the nomination is a photograph rather than a name.

None of this changes the basic shape of what Carroll News has and has not said. Two closed rounds are confirmed, a third is unannounced, and the categories and voting rules for whatever comes next stay with the platform to publish, not with anything guessed here ahead of time.