Manayunk Gets Lit Holiday Decorating Competition: How Voting Works & How to Win

What Is the Manayunk Gets Lit Holiday Decorating Competition and Who Runs It?

The Manayunk Gets Lit Holiday Decorating Competition is a seasonal contest run by the Manayunk Development Corporation, the business organization behind Manayunk, a neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Each holiday season, businesses along Main Street deck their storefronts with lights, and the program's own description puts the display at over 80,000 lights strung across the street, with visitors asked to decide who did it best.

The ballot is a Google Form titled Manayunk Gets Lit - Voting Form, published for the organizer at the docs.google.com address listed in the contest details above. There is no third-party polling brand behind it; the Manayunk Development Corporation promotes the competition through its own holiday event pages and collects votes through the form linked from them.

The reward side has distinct halves. Businesses compete for the top spot among the decorating field, while voters are entered for their chance to win a $200 Manayunk Shopping Spree redeemable at various shops, gyms, studios, cafes and restaurants across the district. That pairing, a storefront honor for merchants and a spending prize for the public, explains why local shops steer customers toward the form each December.

In classification terms the program sits closest to a best-of vote, scoped to a single question about holiday decorations rather than a citywide roster of categories.

When Has Manayunk Gets Lit Run, and What Dates Govern the Current Cycle?

Dating attaches to this program from several directions, and separating them keeps the picture clear.

Recurrence comes from the organizer's own holiday material, which describes Main Street getting lit every year as businesses decorate their storefronts for a chance at first place in an annual decorating competition. Press coverage of the contest along Main Street reaches back to December 2020, when storefronts had been decked out with holiday lights as part of the decorating contest while the pandemic strained local commerce.

Ballot documentation confirms live voting forms for 2023 and 2024.

The 2025 cycle is fully dated. Voting opened on November 20th and ran through December 17th, with winners announced on December 19th. Once the window shut, the form displayed a closed notice dated 12/18/25, so the 2025 edition is complete.

Anyone planning around the 2026 season should watch the Manayunk Development Corporation's holiday pages rather than assume the November 20th opening repeats automatically. The organizer's holiday hub folds the competition into a wider calendar of seasonal events on Main Street, which is where a returning edition would surface first.

How Does a Supporter Vote in the Manayunk Gets Lit Ballot Today?

Taking part starts with the form itself. A supporter opens the Manayunk Gets Lit voting form, reads the short introduction explaining that Manayunk businesses are decking the street with lights and that passers-by are being asked who did it best, then selects the business whose display they rate highest and submits. No account creation and no separate app interrupt the path from a holiday visitor's click to a recorded choice for a Main Street storefront.

The voter prize shapes the experience as much as the vote does: every submitted ballot enters its voter in the $200 Manayunk Shopping Spree drawing, which gives shops a ready-made reason to point foot traffic at the form. Nothing on the form advertises a fee, and the organizer publishes no separate rules page for the competition, so a supporter who meets an unexpected prompt, such as a submission limit, should follow whatever the live form shows for that cycle.

Because the window stretches across the heart of the holiday shopping season, a display can gather support steadily in the run-up to the December 19th announcement rather than in a single rush. The vote is also narrow by design: the eligible subjects are the participating Main Street businesses, and the natural audience is holiday foot traffic in Manayunk, not a metropolitan readership.

How Does This Neighborhood Ballot Sit Beside Pennsylvania's Other Reader Votes?

Within this site's Pennsylvania collection, the neighboring programs are publication-run reader surveys: Best of Philly from Philadelphia Magazine, Best of Berks from Berks County Living Magazine, Best of the 'Burgh, Best of the Lehigh Valley from Lehigh Valley Style, the Bucks County & Chester County Readers' Choice from suburban newspapers, and the Erie Reader Best of Erie poll. Those ballots spread across wide category rosters and lean on each publication's audience.

Manayunk Gets Lit is narrower in subject and smaller in geography. It asks a single question, which Main Street business decorated best, it is run by a neighborhood business district rather than a publisher, and its cycle is pinned to the holidays rather than to a yearly best-of season. Its prize structure points inward at the local economy as well, since the voter reward is spending money inside Manayunk shops, gyms, studios, cafes and restaurants.

For a merchant, that contrast is practical. Support here competes for the attention of people already walking Main Street in December, not for a citywide readership, and the outcome is settled within the holiday season rather than stretched across a long summer voting window.

How Can a Business Strengthen Its Support in Manayunk Gets Lit?

A business that wants stronger numbers in Manayunk Gets Lit works with the ballot's own design. Because every voter lands in the $200 Shopping Spree drawing, an invitation to vote doubles as an invitation to a prize, which makes in-store signage, counter cards and staff conversations natural carriers for the form link. The window runs through the busiest stretch of the holiday shopping season, so the days with the heaviest foot traffic are exactly when a push pays off most.

Neither the competition form nor the Manayunk Development Corporation's holiday event pages say whether bought voting assistance is welcome, so a merchant weighing that route should read the posted terms first. The tactics gathered in the guide to earning more votes online apply directly to a form-based holiday ballot of this shape, and award-vote support exists for merchants who prefer outside help.