Up on the rooftop: Many Utahns enlisting professionals to install their Christmas lights

Despite the popularity of elaborate displays, including inflatable Santas, glowing reindeer and Nativity scenes, neither Brand or Swartz carry those items.

Brand said he shies away from them, although he will install them for an added cost when requested. Still, he said, most customers tend to install those displays themselves.

Brand said he does have a couple of longtime customers who insist on his help pulling good-natured pranks on each other, however.

"Every year they hire me to do something funny," he said. "They have a snowman on skis they pass back and forth that I attach to their roof. This year (the one friend) said I want you to put it on my roof and bill my neighbor."

Gags aside, Brand says the main reasons people are choosing to pay for holiday light installation is simplicity during one of the most complicated family times of the year.

"You tell us what you want, and we'll take care of the rest," he said. "We'll provide the lights for you, we'll put them up, guarantee them through the holidays and take them down in January."

For more and more people, that peace of mind is definitely worth the price.

---

E-mail: jlee@desnews.com