Find Christmas Lights In Washington With This Website

BOTHELL, WA — If you're planning to go check out Christmas lights over the next couple weeks, you may want to visit Jason Pittman's website first. You see, Pittman loves Christmas lights; that's why he's made it easy to find all the local light displays in your area throughout the Puget Sound, British Columbia, Eastern Washington and Oregon.

For the past five seasons Pittman has added to his own Christmas lights finder map at PacificNWChristmasLights.com, which provides the address for and a brief description of area Christmas light displays.

With nearly 300 displays currently listed, and more added every year, Pittman hopes Sound residents see his site as the one-stop-shop for finding the best neighborhoods with the brightest, most colorful, and festive displays around.

Color-coded and organized by identifiable symbols, Pittman's listings differentiate between those you can drive by, those you can walk through, and those that cost money, among others; a skull and crossbones symbol, for example, signifies a "dead display," Pittman explained — meaning the house no longer hangs lights at all.

Pittman, 42, said he spends between 20 and 30 hours per week building on his site in addition to working a full-time, 40-hour per week job as tech support for Precor Fitness. Thankfully, Pittman's wife Diana is willing to help and remind him to take breaks.

However, Pittman said he's looking for locals to step in as admins for the Facebook page he's been running along with the website. Relying on locals is actually the reason Pittman's Christmas lights locator project has seen 300 percent growth every year since he started, he said.

Pittman originally kept the listings by hand; but after his list grew to four pages, he knew he needed to start mapping it out. Then the tips started coming in from even further outside his hometown of Bothell.

Currently, the furthest away listing is the Lisims Suspension Bridge display in Gitwinksihlkw, British Columbia (pronounced git-win-sithk, formerly known as Canyon City). Looking south, Pittman only has one listing in Vancouver: a 20,000-light display spread across six properties called "Holidays on Franklin St."

Pittman plans to create a layered master map using a network of like-minded listers, as well as neighborhood moderators who can provide accurate from-the-ground visuals that might be tougher for him to get to, which he still occasionally does. To help direct newcomers to his maps, Pittman hands out business cards when visiting displays in-person.

Building on his offerings, Pittman said he even started listing Halloween displays in his area this past fall; he hopes to make that an annual addition to his site as well.

Check out Pittman's Christmas display maps at pacificnwchristmaslights.com, and if you know of one he doesn't have listed, feel free to reach out to him on Facebook at facebook.com/PacNWChristmaslights.

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Images via Jason Pittman/facebook.com/PacNWChristmaslights