It’s an exciting thing to finally have your Christmas light show planned out and ready to go, but for some, they also have to take into consideration the possibility that not all neighbors or HOA will be in the same happy holiday spirit as yourself. So, what can be done in a situation where you might meet some resistance?

HOA Issues

In general, people running into issues with their HOA over Christmas displays is rather uncommon. More often than not your HOA, your neighbors, etc. are going to really love and enjoy your Christmas light show and not cause any problems.

Every so often though you may come across an overactive HOA with a few people involved who may just not have enough to do with their time and who may enjoy making a fuss out of relatively small things. In this case what might they try to do?

HOA Restrictions

In the rare case that HOA wants to cause you an issue over your Christmas light display they may decide to put restrictions in place. These restrictions may come in the form of time frames as far as when you are allowed to set up and when you are required to tear down your lights.

Some people manage to get around these restrictions by putting their lights up around Halloween and highlighting some of the minor holidays between Halloween and Christmas. There are a variety of small holidays and so if you find ways to form your lighting sequences around them, you can oftentimes slip through the HOA restriction loophole.

How to Handle Overactive HOAs

Even if you manage to find a nice loophole to work through with your display, the truth is, if an HOA is highly determined to shut you down, they will likely find a way to do so. In this case, you may wonder what is the best way to handle this?

One of the first things to do is to figure out who in particular is making the fuss and what exactly their problem is with your display. If they happen to be one of those people who are just a Grinch during the season, then there is sadly likely not much you can do about it; however, they may be someone who has legitimate concerns.

Legitimate Concerns

If you find that the person who disapproves of your display has legitimate concerns, then there may be ways to accommodate everyone’s needs and keep everybody happy during your display. One of these legitimate concerns that can be worked around is traffic.

Your holiday display may be introducing an unusual amount of traffic through your neighborhood as others drive through to see your lights and this may naturally cause some others in the neighborhood some irritation due to increased noise at odd hours.

Fixes

Issues like this can easily be solved with a little compromise. Perhaps you can go out and help direct the traffic flow to keep things moving along. You could also work out a start and end point to your sequences so that the spectators are contained within a certain time frame that is agreeable to all.

Another simple fix is to incorporate some slow songs into your display. While they may not be the most exciting, they do tend to get people moving so that others can see the show.

If you have tried everything else and are still having problems with the HOA, the best route may be to simply find an alternate site for your display or talk with your neighbors to see if a limited schedule would appease everyone. You may find that by keeping your show to a limited number of hours within a limited number of days will be something that no one can say no to.

Closing

If you love this hobby of Christmas light displays and find that the popularity of your shows has run its course with your HOA, there are always ways to work around it so that you can still enjoy what makes you happy while keeping everyone else content as well.