Downtown Flagstaff Holiday Window Decorating Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Downtown Flagstaff Holiday Window Decorating Contest?

The Downtown Flagstaff Holiday Window Decorating Contest is a seasonal best-of ballot run by the Flagstaff Downtown Business Alliance, the merchant organisation behind downtownflagstaff.org. Each December the Alliance asks downtown businesses to dress their storefront windows for the holidays, and it pairs the displays with a public vote so anyone browsing the district can back the window they like best. The ballot is published on the Alliance's own website at downtownflagstaff.org/do/window-decorating-contest, inside the site's Do section next to its events calendar.

The Alliance works out of 16 W. Phoenix Ave., Suite 102, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, and its site carries a year-round downtown programme: Music on the Square, the Wednesday Farmers Market, Second Saturday events and the Route 66 Centennial calendar. In December the same organisation sponsors the Heritage Square tree lighting, the holiday shopping passport and Winter Wonderland, so the window vote sits inside a crowded holiday calendar rather than standing alone. The thing being ranked is unusual for a best-of ballot, too: not a menu, a service or a person, but a physical display built to be seen from the sidewalk.

Quick facts

Which December dates and editions are tied to this ballot?

Three editions of the contest are pinned down: 2020, 2024 and 2025. The earliest is a 2020 event listing that ran from Monday, December 7 to Monday, December 21 of that year. The 2025 ballot carried a voting stretch of December 1st through December 31st, and a holiday post on the Alliance's site describes the programme as a "friendly competition" that returns annually among downtown businesses. Whether a ballot went up in every December between 2020 and 2024 is not stated on the Alliance's pages.

The 2025 cycle also printed a results date: the winner was to be announced on December 22nd, with cookies and warm drinks promised around the reveal. That places an announcement in the middle of the voting month rather than after it, so anyone following the cycle should treat the live page as the schedule that counts.

Season timeline

How does a supporter cast a vote in the window contest?

The mechanics stay deliberately light. Once the December window is open, a supporter goes to the Window Decorating Contest page on downtownflagstaff.org, looks over the storefront displays taking part, and casts a public vote for the window they want to win. The choice sits with whoever visits the page, not with a jury, a membership or a panel of judges, which is what makes the ballot a straight popularity test of each display.

Phone, desktop and coming back later

The ballot behaves like any other page in a browser, so a phone handles it the same way as a desktop, and the Alliance's site points to no app or special viewer. Supporters who want the outcome can return after the December 22nd announcement. Anyone planning repeat visits should read the page's own wording first, because the Alliance keeps frequency terms off the printed ballot.

A practical habit for the season: fold the vote into the rest of the downtown calendar. The same December trip that takes you past the competing storefronts can end with a ballot filled in from Heritage Square, and the tree lighting and shopping passport give visitors a reason to be in the district anyway.

Where does this ballot fit among Arizona's other public votes?

The window vote belongs to a wider set of Arizona ballots that let readers rank local favourites. Its closest cousin in the state is the Courier Cares Christmas Lighting Contest, another December competition judged on a display, and the Best of Sedona Kudos ballot shows the broader reader-poll shape. Beyond those sit the 2025 MVDN Best of, the 2026 Best of Verde Valley, the 2026 Prescott Readers' Choice and A Taste of AZ People's Choice Award.

What separates the Flagstaff ballot is its subject and its tightness of place. Where the Sedona and Verde Valley ballots ask readers to sort whole categories of local business, and Prescott's Readers' Choice spreads across a town's worth of services, the Alliance's contest ranks a single visual thing: a dressed holiday window in a single walkable district. It is also the most strictly seasonal of the group, tied to a single month rather than a long voting season.

For a merchant deciding where seasonal effort pays off, the contrast matters. A December display vote rewards foot traffic and window design in the weeks before Christmas, while the broader best-of ballots reward reputation built across the whole year and many categories at once.

How can a downtown merchant strengthen support during the December window?

For a participating business, the campaign runs through the storefront itself. The window display is the thing being judged, so it should be visible and photogenic from the sidewalk, and every passer-by in December is a potential voter. Staff can mention the contest at the till, and a sign by the door pointing shoppers to downtownflagstaff.org keeps the ballot in front of customers already inside the shop.

The Alliance prints no wording about outside voting assistance on the ballot, so a business weighing paid help should read the page's terms first and then weigh its options; the general guide to earning more votes online covers tactics that suit community ballots of this shape. Whatever route a merchant takes, the December 22nd announcement gives the push a natural deadline, and the December 31st close marks the point where the display stops earning votes for the year.