Editor's note: To post your holiday lights photos, click here. If you have posted your lights photo and address on YourHub.com and it is not mentioned in this story, e-mail the link to me at leonardb@yourhub.comso I can add it.

One night after work last December, my girlfriend and I grabbed the Rocky Mountain News' Holiday Lights Guide and tried to see as many of the listed houses as possible.

Lesson No. 1: It's a big city. We saw a few houses in the City Park neighborhood in Denver, then picked a nice cluster of houses in Arvada and were able to check them out. All told, between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., we were able to get to about 20 houses, a tiny fraction of those listed in the guide.

This year, YourHub.com is making it a little easier on you and the petroleum industry: We've got photos of a bunch of holiday light displays in the metro area. All you have to do is click around and check them out. If you really want to see them, write down their address and drive there. (This might not be a bad idea, since at least a couple of them have free candy canes, and a few others have coordinated their displays with music being played on FM radio stations.)
I personally reviewed every single house in this list. The great thing, for me, was not the lights, but the stories people have. Or just the statistics. When somebody says they have 20,000 lights on their house, you don't ask, "You guys doing anything for the holidays?"

These people are the holidays. Xcel Energy loves the month of December because of them.

A string of 100 holiday lights costs $9.99 at Target. When reading the following, and someone says they have 15,000 lights, remember that costs $1498.50. Enjoy, and happy holidays.

The 15 winners (as picked by Rocky Mountain News and YourHub.com staffers) of one-year subscriptions to the Rocky Mountain News or The Denver Post, are as follows (in no particular order):

Mike, Ronnie, Cody and Bay Lucketta, of Arvada, actually have a sweet video to go along with their photos.

Just when you think you've seen it all, the Chappells, of Aurora, say, "We have gotten so big that 5 years ago we had to raise the incoming electrical capacity of the house to a new 200 AMP panel just to handle the load. We even ran a sub panel to the garage to take care of the lights on the front of the house." I believe that includes the backyard, which is also illuminated.

Stanton Miller, of Aurora, had a stroke 10 years ago, and although many of his abilities are now gone, he's concentrating on one of the abilities that remain: decorating the heck out of his house and front yard. Check it out.

Okay, 45,000 lights, an animated ski lift and a ferris wheel. John L. Zalesky, of Lakewood, says you have to see it to believe it.

At the Broomfield home of Kevin Hart and Kim Weibert, they say things like "The train track circles a 35' tall tree that is decorated with over 400 lighted candy canes and is complete with assorted packages under the tree." Check out the photos.

You have to respect the running reindeer Janice Snidow, of Thornton, has pulling Santa across her fence, because they're homemade.

The Ruscetta family, of Westminster, is celebrating their 20th year of decorating for the holidays with this display.

Mary Giarratano and her family, of Lakewood, have to take four weeks to get this up every year.

The display in Alek Komarnitsky's yard costs him $3 a day to keep lit for the folks who can allegedly control the lights through his Web site.

If you said there were 5,000 lights on Chuck Fedor's house in Centennial, you'd only be counting the blue ones.

Visit RockyMountainNews.com to see the locations of our other four winners, Richard Finley, of Denver; Karen Vaught, of Broomfield; The Michels, of Arvada; and Jon Johnson, of Highlands Ranch.


And here's the rest of our lights submissions:

Brent Stephenson, of Arvada, has a biking Santa anda skiing Santa in his front yard.

Scot Meyers, of Thornton, is serious. Check this out: "The display has 10,000 lights controlled by 48 computer controlled channels that are synchronized to music and stories. These are transmitted on a short distance FM transmitter at 93.7 FM so you can stay in your warm car and enjoy the show."

The Stellas, of Aurora, not only have a display that's got to be making their electric meter spin like a top, they also have Santa handing out candy canes from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays until Christmas Eve.

I don't even know how Richard Allshouse, of Aurora, did this to his garage, but it's worth a look.

Okay, when you have a " Christmas train" running around your house, you're officially awesome. Terry and Sharon Miller do.

Eighty hours, 70 ornaments and 15,000 bulbs. The Kleins, of Aurora, apparently know no limits.

The Baxter family, of Centennial, put up a display that dances to the music on 93.9 FM. How do people do this radio thing?

Dale Farmer, of Centennial, has 15,000-plus lights in this display. Anybody remember how many Clark Griswold has?

Rick and Linda Wright, of Littleton, actually caught Santa in their front yard checking out their display.

Mike, Michelle, Zach and Nicky Nowlen, of Littleton put together this winter wonderland, with 30,000 lights.

Eric Jacobsen, of Denver, has been doing a " Nightmare Before Christmas" theme at his house since a snowy Halloween five years ago.

I used to live a block away from Tim Nielsen, of Denver, so his house was one of the first Denver holiday displays I saw.

Cyndi Krieger, of Englewood, includes 7 different blowups in her " Christmas Castle."

Bill Schaer, of Aurora, incorporates cars, and NASCAR, into his holiday display.

It took Michael King, of Thornton, about 20 hours to put up his display.

Linda Kyle's husband has a semi-serious "light war" going on with one of their neighbors in Thornton. Check out this year's weaponry. More photos here.

After a one-year hiatus, Katie and Ray Cardenas, of Thornton, are back with the holiday light display that takes them a month to put up.

In Tracy Kilgore's front yard in Thornton, Santa is being pulled in his eight-foot sleigh by a handcrafted eight-foot reindeer. And that's not even the centerpiece.

Ken and Jan Hostetler, of Aurora, hand-make all the wooden figures in their display: Four reindeer, Santa, two carolers, two penguins, a nativity scene and four snowmen, by my count.

Greg and Carol Shamburg, of Aurora, report that not only does their house glow with holiday cheer (from the looks of the photo, it may be visible from the moon), but five of their neighbors join in as well.

The Duncans -- Scott, Chris, Justin and Bradley -- worked on this display in Aurora for four full days.

There are about 25 people and animals in the front yard of the Mathewsons and Fergusons in Aurora. They're all plastic and glowing, too.

From what I can tell, Scott and Lisa Crawford, of Aurora, had to put up artificial trees because they ran out of real trees to cover in lights.

Richard Gardner, of Golden, decided that an 8-degree night was warm enough to lay down on the roof of his office in the Quaintance Block in Golden and hang some lights. And here are Richard's photos of the lights of downtown Golden.

There's definitely a bear in this photo, as well as an igloo. All part of the spread at Brett Jones' house in Golden.

The display at Kevin Moore's house in Parker has 22,000 lights, including 5,000 alone in a "tree." I wonder if they even have to turn on lights in their bedroom to read at night?

When you want to get it done, you start in October, like Lisa Smith, of Parker, did.

There are strands of lights that are easily about 25 feet in the air in the trees in Karen and Mike Kremer's front yard. Oh, and about a million other lights in this display that took them 45 hours to assemble.

Becky Gerze, her three children, Justin, Jason and Jessica, and Tim and Rosie Hughs, all of Lakewood, put up this display for Marge West, who is blind but can still see some of the lights.

If there are 20,000 lights in this display, like Tom Larive, of Lakewood, says, I bet there's 10,000 on the roof.

Okay, I hope Belmar isn't eligible for the free newspaper subscriptions we're giving away for this holiday lights thing. They're not really a nonprofit organization, like everyone else is. But their display is awesome. Anybody else have a 10-foot tree made from more than 1,000 Mountain Dew cans? Does the person who drank all the Mountain Dews have a cavity?

I bet airline pilots can read the word " JOY" on the top of Ed Cannava's house in Centennial.

Shirley Simmons, of Northglenn, says this display was inspired by a time her father took her into Denver to see an entire street lit up for Christmas.

Gloria Hecht, of Northglenn, wants you to know, " This house is decorated by women." And it takes almost two months to decorate. Not to be a Scrooge, but I wonder how long it takes to put all the decorations away?

Brett and Jennifer Moore, of Greenwood Village, have once again turned their home into a gingerbread house.

David Liverant, of Highlands Ranch, and his 9-year-old son, Austin, put up this light show, with a soundtrack.

The Wortham kids, Steph, 16, Blake, 11, and Taylor, 8, of Highlands Ranch, had a goal last year: To get on the Rocky Mountain News holiday lights guide. They put up 10,000 lights to get there.

Wayne and Pati Jacobsen, of Arvada, wrote, "We jokingly say that the airport uses us to guide in planes." I wonder how much of a joke that really is.

Christina Tapia, of Brighton, says she enjoys sharing her holiday lighting work with the community. From the looks of it, she would probably enjoy sharing her energy bill, too.

When you move to Butch Augustine's neighborhood in Arvada, you learn to put lights up around the holidays. Or they move you out.

I think Lloyd and Jami Jones, of Westminster, have a good photo for their "Happy Holidays" card this year -- this one Lloyd took of the lights in the middle of a snowstorm.

Fifteen years of practice equals 10,000 lights and about 70 hours of setup time for Kevin and Rhonda Storatz, of Westminster.

Larry Williams, of Westminster, has been at this for 51 years. His 103 Christmas figures have to spill over into the next-door neighbor's yard now. Good thing the neighbor is his daughter.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. And Snoopy, and some elves, and a couple of Santas, are all on the roof at Jim and Angela Davidson's house in Westminster.

Richard Bowen, of Federal Heights, says he "better get a Christmas card from Xcel Energy!" Hey, look at the photos. That's no joke.

This holiday lights thing is nothing new to Richard Mizell, of Broomfield. He's been on the Rocky Mountain News map for eight years running.

Rick and JoBeth Hill, of Broomfield, say they have three houses in a row on their block that go all out. If they all look like the Hills', the block is probably visible from Venus.

Terry Haynes, of Aurora, brings you this masterpiece, which has been getting bigger and bigger for 18 years now.