Duvall, Washington
Light Up Duvall
Every light on Main Street, hung by your neighbors.
What this is
Nobody is paid to do this
Twice a year, a group of people from this town put every Christmas light on Main Street up, and then take them all down again. Once in November, when it is cold and the ladders are wet, and once at the end of winter, when the novelty has entirely worn off. There is no crew, no budget line, and no contract. There are just people who show up.
It started with Mike Carmona of Eastside Property Solutions and Matt Higgins, then the general manager of Duvall Ace Hardware and Garden. One of them had the lifts and the ladders and the ability to look at a light pole and know what would hold. The other ran the hardware store on the corner. Between them they decided Main Street should be lit, and then they did it, and then they did it again the next year, which is the part that turns a good idea into a tradition.
Buddy Buck has been filming it since 2024 and putting it on Duvall TV, which is how most people who turn up now first heard about it. He is also usually on a ladder before he picks up the camera. The Duvall Chamber of Commerce runs the volunteer RSVP and partners with the city on the tree lighting in December.
It takes one Saturday morning. That is the entire commitment.
The next one
Put it in your calendar
Next light up in
Install day 2026
Saturday, November 7, 9:00 AM
Meet at Duvall Ace Hardware & Garden · Rain or shine
Sign up to helpNo experience and no ladder required. Show up, and somebody will hand you something to do.
Install date published by the Duvall Chamber of Commerce. If it moves, they will be first to know and this page will follow.
The tree lighting
Friday, December 4, 2026
6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Depot Park
Santa, a snow machine, and the whole of Main Street walking downhill together.
City of Duvall. The 2025 ceremony ran Friday, December 5, 6 to 7:30pm; this is the same slot a year on and is not published yet.
The takedown
Not announced yet
Duvall Ace Hardware & Garden
The unglamorous half, and the half that decides whether the lights work next year.
Announced by Duvall TV and Ace a couple of weeks ahead. 2025 ran in February, 2026 in March.
Watch the story
The films
2026 · Community volunteers take down Main Street's lights
Light Up Duvall Takedown 2026
The other half of the tradition. Same ladders, same people, no snow machine.
2025 · The tree lighting, start to finish
Light Up Duvall 2025: Magical Christmas Night Recap
Santa, the sleigh, the snow, and eight hundred people on one street.
2025 · Install day
Light Up Duvall 2025: When Our Small Town Shines Bright Together
Nine in the morning at Ace, and every pole on Main Street done by afternoon.
2025 · The call for volunteers
Light Up Duvall Is HERE
Seven hundred people watched this and a lot of them turned up.
And the rest of the playlist
2025
Light Up Duvall Lights Take Down 2025
Community recap
2025
Light Up Duvall Community Take-Down Event
The invitation from Duvall Ace Hardware
2024
Behind the Scenes: Snow Machines for Light Up Duvall
How the snow on Main Street actually happens
2024
Light Up Duvall 2024: Behind the Scenes of the Holiday Prep
The work before the switch is thrown
2024
Light Up Duvall Fundraiser
Paying for the lights
Where it happens
Main Street, and the walk down to the park
Install day starts at Ace and works the length of Main. In December the parade goes the other way: down Main Street, right at the Amarillo corner onto NE Stephens, and west to Depot Park, where the tree is.
- Duvall Ace Hardware & GardenWhere install day starts, 9am15320 Brown Ave NE
- The Amarillo cornerMain Street and NE Stephens. The parade turns right here15505 Main St NE
- Depot ParkThe tree, the snow, and Santa in the Depot building26225 NE Burhen Way
Down Main, right at Amarillo onto NE Stephens, and west to the park. Old Town, roughly Taylor's Landing down to the Stephens Street corner. This is the stretch that gets lit.
The payoff
The tree lighting
Santa arrives on Main Street in Mike’s truck, which by early December has stopped being a truck and become a sleigh. The snow machines start up, and for an hour it snows on Main Street in a town where it usually just rains. Then everybody walks: down the hill, right at the corner, and into Depot Park, where a very large tree is standing in the dark waiting for somebody to throw a switch.
Inside the old Depot building there are photos with Santa and no charge for them. Outside there are vendors, music, and most of the town standing in a field in the cold on purpose. The lights that go on that night are the same lights a few dozen people put up on a Saturday morning in November, which is the whole point and is also the thing almost nobody in the crowd knows.
What happens
- Santa arrives in the truck-sleigh
- Snow machines on Main Street
- The walk down to Depot Park
- The tree goes on
- Free Santa photos in the Depot building
- Vendors, music, and craft booths
Photos and video of the ceremony go here. If you have some, the wall further down this page is open, and anything posted there can end up in this slot.
Next one: Friday, December 4, 2026 at Depot Park, though that date is not confirmed yet.
The wall
Sign in to add yours. Everyone can see the wall; signing in is how a photo stays yours to take back down.
Sign in to postWho is coming
27 volunteers
signed up for the next one. Join them.
About 60 pairs of hands makes it a morning instead of a day.
Who makes it happen
Partners
- Eastside Property SolutionsCo-founder and organizerThe trucks, the ladders, the lifts, and the sleigh. Mike started this and has run install day every year since.Mike & Jody Carmona
- Duvall TVFilms it, every yearNine films and counting, all of them free to watch and free to share.Buddy Buck
- Buddy Buck Real EstatePromoter and volunteerOn a ladder in the morning and behind a camera by the afternoon.Buddy Buck
- RMV ProductionsVideographyThe reason the later films look like films.Ryan Miller
How it got here
The years so far
This list is short because it starts where the footage does. It gets longer every time somebody who was there tells us what we missed.
Year one
Mike and Matt decide Main Street should be lit
Mike Carmona of Eastside Property Solutions and Matt Higgins, then general manager of Duvall Ace Hardware & Garden, started Light Up Duvall between them: one with the lifts and the ladders, one with the hardware store on the corner. The exact first year is not written down anywhere we can find, which is a very Duvall problem to have.
Know the year? Tell us and this entry gets a date.
March 2024
Paying for the lights
Duvall TV's first Light Up Duvall film is not a recap, it is a fundraiser. Strings of commercial-grade lights and the hardware to hang them are not free, and neither is replacing the third of them that a Cascade winter takes out.
Watch this oneNovember 2024
The first full year on camera
Buddy starts filming the prep instead of just the payoff: the sorting, the testing, the arguing about which pole gets done first.
Watch this oneDecember 2024
Snow on Main Street
The snow machines get their own behind-the-scenes film, because the single most asked question after every tree lighting is how they do the snow.
Watch this oneFebruary 2025
The takedown becomes an event too
Ace puts out the invitation and enough people turn up that the unglamorous half of the tradition gets a recap film of its own. This is the year Light Up Duvall stops being one Saturday and becomes two.
Watch this oneNovember 1, 2025
Nine in the morning at Ace
The call goes out ten days ahead and lands in front of seven hundred people. Main Street is finished the same day.
Watch this oneDecember 5, 2025
The tree lighting at Depot Park
Six to seven thirty, Santa photos in the Depot building, vendors and music in the park, and the walk down from Main Street in front of it.
Watch this oneMarch 2026
Down they come
The most recent chapter, and the reason the boxes at Ace are labelled properly for the first time.
Watch this oneNovember 7, 2026 · next up
The next one
Same meeting point, same hour, same street. The only variable is how many people show up.
One Saturday morning
That is the whole ask. Bring gloves if you have them, and somebody will hand you something to do.
Sign up to help