Christmas Light Installers in Highland, IN

Christmas Light Installation in Highland, IN

Highland sits in the North Township of Lake County, Indiana, a few miles south of the Borman Expressway where Interstates 80 and 94 cross the Calumet region on their way into Chicago. The town incorporated on April 4, 1910, but its real growth came later: Highland had just 5,878 residents in 1950, then more than quadrupled to 24,947 by 1970 as postwar Chicago-area families filled in nearly every block between US-41 and the Griffith line in barely two decades, and the town's population has held almost flat ever since. That boom is why downtown, centered where Highway Avenue meets Kennedy Avenue, still carries a run of Mid-Century Modern storefronts from the era, and it's also when the town built its own public school system — the School Town of Highland, which runs Highland High School, founded in 1957, along with a middle school and four elementary schools. Highland has one other claim worth knowing: Ward Cunningham, the programmer who invented the wiki — the format behind Wikipedia itself — grew up here and finished high school in town before the idea existed anywhere. Lights Local connects homeowners and property managers across Highland with local holiday lighting installers who already know this grid of mid-century streets.

Winter here is a real four-season winter, not a mild one, and that changes what belongs on a roofline. At Gary/Chicago International Airport, the nearest station with a full 1991-2020 federal climate normal, December averages a 37.3-degree afternoon high against a 24.9-degree overnight low, and January runs colder still at 33.8 and 20.9. The same thirty-year record puts the median date of the season's first 32-degree freeze at November 3 and the first 28-degree freeze eleven days later, on November 14 — meaning most Highland yards cross the freezing line and climb back above it repeatedly through the install season rather than settling into one hard freeze. Early autumn still feels workable — November's average high of 50.8 degrees is shirt-sleeve weather in the afternoon — but that same record shows the gap between a comfortable October install day and a frozen December one closing in a matter of weeks, not months. That freeze-thaw swing is hard on cheap seasonal wiring and clip hardware. A Highland install calls for commercial-grade LED strands built for that swing, sealed socket connections, and GFCI-protected circuits checked before anything is energized on a wet or frosted roofline.

Highland's residential streets fall into a handful of named subdivisions laid down during that same mid-century boom: Arbor Hill and Boulevard Estates toward the center of town, Brantwood and White Oak Estates further out, and Wicker Park Estates near the town's eastern edge toward Griffith. Housing across these blocks runs mostly to the one-story and split-level homes typical of a town that built out almost entirely between 1950 and 1970, set on compact in-town lots with mature street trees rather than the sprawling cul-de-sacs of a newer suburb. At just under 24,000 residents packed into 6.97 square miles, Highland runs close to 3,400 people per square mile — a genuinely dense, inner-ring number for Lake County — which is part of why so many of its blocks read as one continuous grid rather than separate pods of newer development. The Erie Lackawanna Trail, a paved rail-trail laid along the old Erie-Lackawanna and Baltimore & Ohio right-of-way, cuts diagonally across town connecting these subdivisions to Griffith and on to Crown Point, and the same flat, grid-platted street pattern that makes the trail possible also makes most residential roof access straightforward. That density is an advantage for installation — most rooflines sit low enough to work from a standard extension ladder rather than requiring a lift, and the tight lot lines mean several adjacent homes can be handled in a single afternoon. Attached garages and covered porches common to the era give more anchor points for roofline runs than a typical newer build offers.

The case for booking in September or early October in Highland is about daylight, not temperature. Sunset here falls at 6:31 in the evening on October 1 but only 5:46 by Halloween, and once Daylight Saving Time ends on November 1 it drops straight to 4:44 — a loss of nearly two hours of usable afternoon roofline light in exactly five weeks. By November 15 sunset is 4:30, and by November 30 it is 4:21, leaving almost no daylight window after a typical workday ends. That calendar math also explains why a lift is rarely necessary here — on these mostly one-story blocks the ladder work itself is fast, but the shrinking daylight window to do it in is not. Rain adds to the squeeze: the station's September-through-November stretch averages roughly 9.2 inches of precipitation against about 6.9 inches for the three coldest months combined, so the dry, workable days are concentrated earlier in that window than most homeowners assume. Layer the freeze calendar on top of all that: the median first 32-degree morning arrives November 3, right in the middle of that daylight collapse, so crews are losing light and gaining frost at the same time. A homeowner who calls in early October gets a crew working in full daylight; a homeowner who waits until Thanksgiving week is asking for a roofline install finished in the dark, in freezing air, with no slack left in the calendar.

A full holiday lighting install in Highland starts with a walkthrough of the roofline, fascia, entry columns and any trees the homeowner wants wrapped, followed by an actual measurement so the strand order matches the house before a ladder goes up. Commercial-grade LED is standard here — C9-profile bulbs along fascia and gutters, mini lights wrapped through shrubs and the mature street trees common to Highland's older blocks, and warm white or multicolor runs depending on the home. Entry columns and porch railings common to these 1950s and 60s homes take mini-light wrap just as readily as the roofline itself, and many homeowners here ask for both rather than the roofline alone. Because many of these blocks were platted and planted at the same time in the 1950s and 60s, the street trees along them have matured together, which means wrapped-trunk lighting on parkway trees is a common request in Highland in a way it isn't yet in a newer subdivision a few towns over. Because a Highland display typically runs nightly from Thanksgiving into early January through repeated freeze-thaw cycles, a mid-season check to swap a failed run is worth asking for specifically rather than assuming nothing will fail. A scheduled takedown date belongs in the written agreement along with who coils and stores the equipment, and some installers keep the same measured strands in storage to rehang the following November, which shortens next year's job considerably.

Commercial lighting is a real part of the season along Highland's two named gateway corridors. Indianapolis Boulevard, which carries US-41 the length of the town, and Kennedy Avenue to the east both run storefronts, strip retail and office buildings that the town's own redevelopment plan is actively working to dress up — seasonal lighting is an easy, visible way for a property owner to get ahead of that push. The town's Redevelopment Commission has specifically flagged both corridors as underperforming gateways it wants to see reinvested in, so a business owner who lights up early is working with the town's own stated priorities rather than against them. The Highway Avenue and Kennedy Avenue downtown core, with its run of Mid-Century Modern storefronts, lights up for the season on a different schedule than a residential block, tied to tenant hours and landlord sign-off rather than a Saturday afternoon. Civic sites add to it too, from the Lincoln Community Center on Lincoln Street to the municipal buildings along Ridge Road. Property managers along both corridors should expect scheduling conversations that look nothing like a homeowner's, and should start those conversations well before the daylight window closes.

Lights Local covers every part of Highland, from the Wicker Park Estates side near Griffith to the Boulevard Estates and Arbor Hill blocks closer to the Munster line, and through Brantwood and White Oak Estates in between. The town itself is small and compact — just 6.97 square miles — bordered directly by Hammond to the north across the Borman Expressway, Munster to the west, Schererville to the south, and Griffith to the east, with Dyer a little further south beyond Schererville. Because Highland sits right at the junction of those four borders, a street address near one edge of town can be geographically closer to a neighboring town's own downtown than to Highland's Highway Avenue and Kennedy Avenue core at the town's center. The whole town also sits at a nearly uniform 623 feet of elevation, so there is no hillside grading to account for the way there is in some of Lights Local's other markets — just flat, closely spaced blocks running right up against four separate town lines. That makes a ZIP lookup a more reliable way to confirm coverage here than guessing from a street address alone, particularly for a home close to the Munster, Griffith or Hammond line. Enter your ZIP code to confirm which installers serve your specific location.

Requesting a quote is free, and Lights Local does not mark up the price or stand between you and the person doing the work. A one-story 1950s home near Arbor Hill and a Mid-Century storefront on Indianapolis Boulevard are different jobs with different access and timelines, so bring your roof type, story count and what you want lit to the first call. Ask specifically whether the quote you're comparing includes removal and storage, since two numbers that sound close on the phone can represent very different scopes once takedown is factored in. Start with your ZIP code to see who serves Highland.

Highland Neighborhoods and Areas Served

Our Highland holiday lighting installers serve homeowners and businesses across this North Township community and the Lake County towns that border it:

Browse all Christmas light installers in Lake County or use your ZIP code to find pros near you.