Holiday festivities bring out friendly rivalry in East Goshen Township, when residents participate in a house decorating competition that can give them bragging rights for an entire year.

The competition began last year and provides a simple, fun way for residents to go out and light up the neighborhood with holiday cheer, writes Daily Local News’ Candice Monhollan.

“I think it’s fun for the community,” said Tim Porreca, a local resident. “We just moved to the area and we really wanted to get involved and have some fun.”

To participate in the competition, a home needs to be decorated and a picture sent to the township by the deadline. For the next two days, residents decide on Facebook who is the winner by casting their vote for the house that they consider to be the best.

During the Holiday Celebration at East Goshen Park on Friday night, which included the traditional tree-lighting ceremony, the winners of this year’s competition were announced.

Last year’s winners took several days to put up their decorations, but the effort paid off.

“I happen to live in a neighborhood where people kind of helped me win last year,” said last year’s champions the Douglass family. “I only won by one or two votes. I have a pretty good pool of people and that’s how I was able to stuff the ballot box last year.”

This year the Douglass family missed the deadline, but that did not stop them from still putting up an impressive display of lights.

“I tend to go away Thanksgiving week and I don’t get home until Sunday and that’s typically when everyone decorates,” said Douglass. “The next weekend I had a few errands, so it got pushed back, so I got it done late.”

Not everything went without a hitch, as this year’s first time participants, the Porreca’s, decorated their home in lights, but somebody decided to ruin their fun.

“We just tried to be completely original,” Porreca said. “We tried to go as over-the-top as we could, but unfortunately one of our neighbors didn’t appreciate it and somebody came and stole all of our lights.”

However, the most important thing is the look on children’s faces as they enjoy the lights.

“It helps raise awareness of the township,” Douglass said. “East Goshen is a good township. This is just something fun and hopefully it’s a tradition that will continue.”