Gypsum Holiday Lighting Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who runs the Gypsum Holiday Lighting Contest and what does it celebrate?

KKVM (The Mile), the Colorado radio station heard on air as 104.7 theMILE, runs the Gypsum Holiday Lighting Contest as a seasonal community feature on themile.fm. The invitation goes to homes within Gypsum town limits, and the station's contest page sets a playful tone, telling residents it is time to get your "Griswold" on. Honors and awards await the most festive exterior holiday decorations in the community, and the top distinction, the Residents' Choice, is settled by residents themselves rather than by a panel. Entry works by nomination. A homeowner may put forward their own house, or a neighbor may do the same, using the Holiday Lighting Contest Entry Form together with a photo (or two) of the decorated exterior. Once nominations close, every qualifying submission moves onto the Holiday Lighting Contest Voting Page, where the public vote happens. That gives the program an unusual profile among Colorado public votes. Comparable ballots in the state tend to be wide best-of surveys from publishers covering whole metros; this one is a single-town holiday tradition with a single award at stake, published by the station itself at https://themile.fm/gypsum-holiday-lighting-contest/.

Item	Detail
Program	Gypsum Holiday Lighting Contest
Organizer	KKVM (The Mile), on air as 104.7 theMILE
Place	Gypsum, Colorado
Eligible entries	Homes within Gypsum town limits
Ballot address	https://themile.fm/gypsum-holiday-lighting-contest/
Top honor	Residents' Choice
Entry route	Holiday Lighting Contest Entry Form with a photo (or two)

Which Gypsum lighting cycles are confirmed and what are the key dates?

Two cycles of the contest are documented, in 2024 and 2025, both anchored to December. The Town of Gypsum reinforces the pattern: its holiday notice calls the program an annual tradition, which points to another December round in 2026, although the station has not yet posted fresh entry or voting dates for that cycle. Within a confirmed cycle the calendar runs in two stages. A nomination stretch closes first, and only entries complete by its cutoff become eligible; the resident vote follows immediately, with every qualified submission listed together on the station's voting page.

Stage	When	What happens
Nomination deadline	3 pm, Friday, December 12th	The entry form plus a photo (or two) must have arrived for the home to be eligible
Voting opens	Monday, December 15th	All entries are listed on the Holiday Lighting Contest Voting Page
Voting closes	Friday, December 19th	Resident ballots determine the Residents' Choice winner

Not every element of the format is spelled out. The station never itemizes what those honors and awards actually are; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How does a resident cast a ballot in the Gypsum lighting vote?

Casting a ballot here is deliberately simple. Once the voting page goes live, it lists every eligible entry alongside the photos submitted with its nomination form. A supporter scrolls the displays, decides which Gypsum home looks most festive, and logs a vote for it. The Town of Gypsum's companion notice sets the pace in plain terms: you can vote once per day per person during the voting period. A household that wants to sway the Residents' Choice outcome therefore plans a nightly return until the closing Friday. Nothing in the contest text points to a sign-in wall, a fee or an app; the vote plays out on an ordinary web page served by the station. How any device or browser limit might sit underneath the daily rule is left unstated by the organizer, so a family sharing a single screen should read the live page before building a routine. Eligibility on the ballot is also fixed early. Only entries that cleared the nomination cutoff appear for voting, which means a spectacular display spotted after the fact waits for the following winter and its own entry form.

How does the Gypsum lighting ballot sit beside Colorado's bigger public votes?

Colorado readers have no shortage of public votes, and the sibling ballots listed for this state show the range. 5280's Top of the Town survey spans Denver dining and culture; Best of Denver from Westword runs a wide metro ballot; Best of NOCO, the Gazette's Best of the Springs, Best of Summit County and Best of the Boat each sweep a region with long lists of businesses and services. The Gypsum contest inverts that shape. It covers a single town, a single subject, exterior holiday decorations, and a single named outcome, the Residents' Choice. Its organizer is a radio station rather than a publishing group, and its calendar is a tight December stretch instead of a months-long survey window. For a supporter, that changes the arithmetic: a handful of engaged households in Gypsum can genuinely move the result, while a metro-wide best-of ballot demands sustained volume across weeks. That intimacy also raises the stakes of timing. Nomination shuts days before voting starts, so the displays competing on the ballot are fixed before the very first click. Anyone hoping to see a particular porch lit up on the slate next winter needs to act during the entry stretch, not the voting one.

How can supporters grow a vote count in the Residents' Choice race?

The confirmed daily-return rule rewards rhythm and reach. A household that revisits the Holiday Lighting Contest Voting Page every evening during the voting stretch multiplies its impact without bending anything, and reminders help: tie the visit to something the family already does after dark, when the displays are lit and easiest to judge. Beyond the household, the effective move in a town this size is neighborly. Ask friends within Gypsum town limits to bookmark the ballot, and share the station's contest link through the channels locals already use. On paid assistance the published picture is thin. Neither KKVM's contest text nor the town's holiday notice says whether outside voting help is welcome, so read their current wording before committing money. General background sits on how to get more votes online, the marketplace-neutral buy votes online page, and award-vote campaigns, the closest match for a best-of style ballot like this one. Even well-run assistance cannot promise a result in a resident poll this intimate.