THE Dougherty family from Medowie has won the Examiner's Christmas Night Lights Trail competition. Steve and Julie Dougherty have been lighting up their Eagle Close home for about five years. Combining their manpower, and with help from children Blake, 12, and Charlotte, 9, it takes about 50 hours for the Doughertys to put up their entire display, made up with more than 30,000 lights. The house is covered in lights, mainly LEDs, including the entire roof and along the solar panels. To cap it off, the Doughertys have a cherry blossom tree made up of just lights in their front garden. The couple entered their house on the Examiner's trail in the second week of December and by the close of voting had comfortably won the competition with close to 100 votes. "For all the hard work we've done over the years, it is good to be appreciated," Mr Dougherty said. As well as the pride in knowing their effort at decorating their house each year has not gone unnoticed by the public, the Doughertys have won a $500 gift voucher from Charlestown Square. Other strong contenders in the voting stakes were Danielle Sharpe's home along Soldiers Point Road at Salamander Bay and Ditch and Leanne Jones' house on Bagnall Beach Road at Corlette. Entries to the Examiner's trail spanned right across the Port including Nelson Bay, Fingal Bay, Medowie, Lemon Tree Passage, Raymond Terrace and Heatherbrae.