High Strung Christmas Lights Brings Seasonal Joy to Everett

Editor’s note: Originally published November 5, 2019. Republished October 1, 2020.

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It’s November in the Northwest and the weather is... frankly, awful. It’s something that is part sleet, part mist — all mixed with a fog that turns your fingertips purple.

Are you going to get an extension ladder and put lights on your roof? Nope.

Everett’s Riley Poor is your guy for this task. His company, High Strung Christmas Lights, is here to take perilous rooftop danger off your holiday to-do list.

Riley, an Everett native, is someone who likes a challenge. Tanned and fit, he’s inherently a physical guy — every time I talk to him he’s recently been paddleboarding, hiking or cycling long distances.

So it makes sense that he’d be up for running his own seasonal Christmas lights business. It’s a matter of stamina and pacing; an endeavor that takes him all over the Greater Seattle Area, up and down ladders for 12-hour days in the gathering dark of late autumn and winter.

And, apparently, he loves it.

Poor’s handiwork on a North Everett house // Garret Hunt

“This (seasonal) work is not something I imagined for myself,” he says. “I’ve worked in the action sports industry and sales. The crossover of that is I like physical work.”

Christmas light work fits into his background in customer service. He admits that when he’s done with a house, “it’s a beautiful finished product.”

It is a beautiful product.

What he offers aren’t cheap, department store strings of lights. Riley and company install hand-built, commercial-grade, made-to-order incandescent or LED bulbs. These lights stand up to the PNW seasons year after year. Everything that Riley and company install is warrantied and serviced.

While Riley Poor takes his lights quite seriously, he admits that the work for him is silly and satirical. It has a touch of self-aware holiday mirth. The company name High Strung Christmas Lights is basically a joke about how busy and often intense his seasonal workload is. In his promotional photos, Riley appears to be posing for a corny vintage Christmas card: complete with mustache, carefully coiffed hair and soft lighting.

That’s all part of the fun.

Your friendly neighborhood Christmas light installer // Courtesy of Riley Poor

“I take my customer service relationships really seriously, but it’s Christmas lights — it’s all done out of sheer delight. It’s a crazy season [otherwise]. My mission is to take one thing off people’s plate and make the Christmas service as simple as possible for consumers. Their service is a text away.”

Poor installing made-to-order lights // Garret Hunt

Riley Poor says his schedule really starts to fill up as Thanksgiving approaches. If you’re looking to hire High Strung Lights to do your roof, it’s best to book by November 1st. Riley can often come out to do an estimate within a week.

This year the operation has expanded to two trucks and a larger crew — so they’re able to spread more holiday cheer.

And, you know... keep you from falling off wet ladders.