You look at your house with pride. The dark, cold night is lit up with bright and colorful Christmas lights, outlining the shape of your house, the trees, the walkway. Children squeal with delight as their parents drive them by as part of their Christmas tradition of looking at the town’s homes all decorated for the season.
But maybe even better than the pride is the relief of knowing that you didn’t have to be the one who put the lights up yourself. With your schedule, you might simply not have had the time to painstakingly wrap the lights that fit your house like a glove. You called Calypso Window Washing and they took care of the whole job for you.
While it may sound strange that a window washing business can take care of Christmas lights, Calypso Window Washing actually has multiple businesses under one umbrella. And one of those business is Calypso Holiday & Event Lighting.
Originally starting as a way to continue working and employing staff when window and power washing services had to stop for the season, Christmas lighting has now become a booming business for Calypso. “We stay very busy from November 1 through December 17,” explains Calypso owner, Cameron McGee.
McGee explains how the process works. You call Calypso and ask for an estimate – the sooner the better. “We are already doing estimates this year,” McGee explains. “We really start getting a lot of calls on Black Friday, and by December 1 we’re pretty close to completely booked.”
They come out to your house and talk about what you would like, taking into consideration budget as well as power available. “We can do basically anything with LED lights, they take so little power. But if a person wants to use incandescent lights, those can be limited by available power.” They will also give advice on what will look best, such as which areas should be lit or which types of lights will look best from a distance.
They typically don’t schedule a day to install, unless you must be there, but instead cover one geographic area at a time. Because of this, you can go to work one day and come home to a beautifully decorated house. Then starting January 2, you can go to work one day and when you come home, the lights have all disappeared, carefully removed and taken back to Calypso for storage until next year.
Using their equipment, everything is custom made on the spot for your property. You can rent the lights or you can buy them. You can have the colors changed up every year. “Most people like to rent the lights. That way no one has to worry about having room to store them. But they can also buy them. If you plan to stay in your house longer than five years, buying is your better investment,” explains McGee. Installation, maintenance, removal and storage is all covered in the fee.
To prepare the custom lights for your property, they hand-cut the cords to custom length. There is no overlap or wrapping back of extra cords. “We can even make custom length extension cords,” says McGee. The cords are flat which allows them to be placed easier in areas such as under doorways. There are several colors of wire that can be used, and you get to choose the type of lights (clear or opaque) and the color scheme. “Some people like the traditional colors, others would like themes. We have even created a Seahawks theme,” McGee says with a smile.
Calypso has a wide variety of commercial grade decorations they can provide, like lawn ornaments, a giant wreath, garland and artificial trees from four feet tall up to 76 feet. “There is very little we can’t do that’s Christmas-oriented,” says McGee.
Calypso has recently moved into a new shop where McGee plans to have a Christmas boutique from November 1 through December 17. You can go in and see samples of decorations, the types of lights they can use, and the colors of cords available. If you prefer to hang your own lights, you can custom order then hang them yourself. There will also be local artists selling their Christmas décor as well.
Calypso can do as much or as little of your decorating as you want. They can also do lights for other events or holidays. “We have decorated a house for Halloween, we can do Valentine’s Day, basically anything. A person could have different lights hung all year round,” McGee says.
And if you don’t need Calypso’s lighting services for yourself, you can also buy a gift certificate for a friend or family member who would love to have their home decorated, but don’t have the time or ability to do it themselves. “We’ve sold several gift certificates to kids who bought them for their parents,” reports McGee.
Calypso Window Washing
111 W. Magnolia
Centralia, WA
(360) 269-4947
