"When should I put up my lights?" It's the most-asked question in outdoor lighting, and every fall it sends thousands of Albertans up ladders in the cold to staple light strings to frozen gutters. Here's the answer nobody expects: once.

Permanent LED lighting flips the whole question on its head. Your lights get installed one time, tucked discreetly into your roofline, and controlled from an app with millions of colours. After that, "putting up the lights" means tapping a saved scene. Christmas takes three seconds. So does Halloween. So does Canada Day, Diwali, Stampede week, and your kid's grad photos.

This is the calendar we wish every Alberta homeowner had: a month-by-month guide to what your house can do, with colour recipes for every occasion. Schedule these scenes once in the app and your home handles every holiday automatically — this year, next year, forever. No ladders. No cords. No problem.

How to use this guide Every recipe below is a scene you save once in the Starise app. Name it, schedule the dates it should run, and forget about it. The app handles scheduled scenes, multi-zone control, and millions of colours — so your January looks nothing like your July without you lifting a finger.

The whole year at a glance

MonthThe occasionThe look
JanuaryWinter recovery, Lunar New YearWinter white & ice blue; red & gold
FebruaryValentine's Day, Family DaySoft red & pink; cozy warm white
MarchSt. Patrick's DayEmerald & shamrock greens
AprilEasterSoft pastels
MayVictoria Day, patio season beginsRed & white; spring warm white
JuneGrad season, PrideSchool colours; rainbow option
JulyCanada Day, StampedeRed & white; western ambers
AugustSummer partiesSunset scenes & patio warm white
SeptemberFall arrivesAmbers, golds, harvest orange
OctoberThanksgiving, Halloween, DiwaliAmber; orange & purple; gold & red
NovemberRemembrance Day, Grey Cup, hockeySubdued warm white; team colours
DecemberChristmas, Hanukkah, NYERed & green; blue & white; gold

Twelve months, one system. Below, each month gets its recipe: the colours, the hex codes to punch into the app, and links to deeper guides where we've written full pattern breakdowns. Bookmark this page — it's the hub for every seasonal guide we publish.

January — winter whites, ice blue, and Lunar New Year

January in Alberta is dark by 5pm and regularly -20°C or colder. The boxed-up-lights crowd goes dark on January 2nd and stays dark until December. You don't have to.

And no, the cold snap doesn't matter. Starise components are IP65/IP68 rated and operate from -40°C to +60°C — tested through Calgary winters and Chinook freeze-thaw cycles.

February — Valentine's reds and Family Day warmth

The shortest month still earns two scenes.

Pro tip: schedule the Valentine's scene to start the evening of the 13th. Surprising exactly one person is the entire point.

March — St. Patrick's greens

March in Alberta is melt season: grey snowbanks, brown lawns, the least photogenic month of the year. Which is exactly why one bold colour works so well.

One colour, full commitment. Green reads unmistakably from the street — no inflatable leprechaun required.

April — Easter pastels

Easter moves around — anywhere from late March to late April — which is where app scheduling beats hard-wired anything: drag the dates, done.

May — Victoria Day and real spring

The May long weekend is Alberta's unofficial start of summer: first camping trip, first barbecue, first honest evening on the deck.

June — grad season and Pride

June is Alberta's photo month. Grad gowns on front steps, golden-hour family shots, and sunsets that push 11pm.

With those late sunsets, June lights run short hours. Schedule scenes from dusk and let the app do the math.

July — Canada Day and Stampede week

The biggest month on the southern-Alberta lighting calendar, and it's not close.

Schedule them back to back: the Canada Day scene runs June 30 to July 1, then the Stampede scene takes over from parade day through the final chuckwagon night. Your house transitions itself while you're at the grounds.

August — summer party scenes

No statutory holiday required (though the August long weekend counts). August is patio month, and your lighting should act like it.

Bonus: when the party winds down, one tap kills everything. No wandering the yard at midnight unplugging extension cords, because there aren't any.

September — the amber switch

Sometime in the first week of September, Alberta flips from summer to fall overnight. Your lights should flip with it.

The full fall playbook — including how to carry these tones through to Thanksgiving dinner — is in our fall & Thanksgiving lighting guide.

October — the three-scene month

October is the busiest stretch of the lighting year, and the month where scheduling earns its keep. Three occasions, three scenes, zero ladders.

November — remembrance, football, and hockey

November asks for range: one solemn day, then full-volume fandom.

One more November note: this is the month your neighbours climb ladders in the first real snowfall to hang Christmas strings. You'll be inside, warm, tapping a screen. Permanent lighting pays for itself in smugness alone.

December — the main event

Everything the system does all year is a warm-up for December.

Then January 1st rolls around, the winter white scene takes over automatically, and the calendar starts again. That's the whole trick: it never ends, and it never needs you on a ladder.

The unwritten rules of year-round lighting

Running lights twelve months a year comes with a little etiquette. Three rules keep yours the house people love — not the one the community Facebook group discusses:

The best part: all three rules are just schedule settings. Set them once and the etiquette runs on autopilot too.

Set it once: build your whole year in one evening

Here's the part that makes this a calendar and not a chore list. Sit down with the app for one evening and build your scene library: pick colours, pick patterns, name each scene, and attach dates. From then on, the year runs itself.

For the moving-date holidays — Easter, Diwali, Lunar New Year, Hanukkah — updating the schedule is a ten-second edit each year. For everything else you'll never think about it again. More tricks in our app features guide.

So when should you put up your lights? Once.

A typical Starise install runs $3,000–$8,000 depending on the size and complexity of your home — the full breakdown is in our cost guide — and running the lights costs roughly $5–$15 a month in power. That's the entire calendar above, every year, for less than a streaming subscription.

It's a 24V system (many competitors run 12V), which means brighter output, longer runs, and longer lifespan. It's rated for everything Alberta throws at it, from -40°C cold snaps to +60°C summer soffits. Prefer to spread the cost out? 0% financing is available through Humm for qualified customers — approval and account terms are handled by Humm.

And it means the question that started this article — "when should I put up my lights?" — simply stops existing at your house. Every holiday on this page is already up there, waiting for its date.

Frequently asked questions

When should I put up Christmas lights in Alberta?
With temporary lights, the usual advice is to hang them in October before the deep cold arrives — which is why you see people on ladders every Thanksgiving weekend. With permanent lighting, the honest answer is once. The lights are always up; you just switch the scene from your phone.
Do I have to reprogram my lights for every holiday?
No. You build each scene once in the app, name it, and schedule it. After that, the calendar runs itself. The only upkeep is nudging dates for moving holidays like Easter, Diwali, and Lunar New Year — a ten-second edit from your couch.
Can permanent lights really run year-round in Alberta weather?
Yes. Starise components are IP65/IP68 rated and operate from -40°C to +60°C, and the 24V system has been tested through Calgary winters and Chinook freeze-thaw cycles. January cold snaps and July heat waves are both inside the design range.
How much does it cost to run holiday lights every month of the year?
Typically $5–$15 a month in power. LEDs draw very little electricity, and most scenes run only during evening hours on a schedule, so a year-round lighting calendar costs less than one streaming subscription.
What about holidays that change dates every year?
Easter, Diwali, Lunar New Year, Hanukkah, and the Grey Cup all move around the calendar. Open the app, drag the schedule to this year's dates, and you're done. No rewiring, no reprogramming — just a quick date edit.

One install. Every holiday. Forever.

Get a free quote and have your home ready for every scene on this calendar. A flat $300 deposit books your install — that's it.

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