REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Recognition of Holiday Home Decorating Contest Winners
Report
BACKGROUND
In the early 2000s, the City Manager's Office (CMO) initiated a Holiday Decoration Contest in the City of Santa Clara. Since the beginning of the Contest the winners received lawn signs (made by Public Works) to recognize their holiday spirit in the Santa Clara community. In 2014, the Senior Center assumed the Holliday Decorating Contest implementation including: promotion, processing nominations, judging, mapping contestant homes, coordinated with Public Works to make the lawn sign, and generating a results list posted to the website.
In 2018, over fifty residents applied for the competition, the nominations were divided by categories (Best Residence, Special Recognition and Best Neighborhood), and volunteers from the Senior Advisory Commission and Cultural Commission assisted with visiting and judging the nominations. In past years, judging was done in one evening over 4 hours with one group of volunteers. In 2018, due to the number of nominations the volunteer judging process took place over multiple evenings. As usual, home holiday decorations were creative, competition was stiff, and holiday joy was abundant.
DISCUSSION
Volunteer judges voted for entries based on lighting, color, originality, and festivity. Judges took into account the creative use of lighting, color choices and amount of lighting, the use of decorations, the presence of themes, and the overall aesthetic of the entry. Categories eligible for nomination were Best Residence, Special Recognition, Best Neighborhood, Best Business, and Best Tree. This year there were no nominations for Best Business or Best Tree.
Winners were notified the week of January 7th and received the coveted Holiday Decorating Contest Winner lawn sign, along with a posting in the Santa Clara Weekly. Due to the volume of nominations, judging tabulation was not completed until after the City Holiday period...
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