My Christmas decorating motto for the yard is: if you can see it you should decorate it. Whether it’s along the path you walk from your car or from the inside of your kitchen looking out, stick a tree, swag, garland or lights on it. It’s Christmas. There’s no such thing as going overboard.
If you have snow, you have a head start on decorating outside for Christmas. For everyone else? You’ve gotta put in some effort to make your yard look Christmasy.
I love going for walks around my neighbourhood this time of year looking at the houses with the massive inflatable snowmen they picked up at Costco while buying a 72 pound jar of olives. The houses dripping in lights, flashing nativity scenes and Santa Clauses are my favourites to look at.
But I don’t want that for my house.
For one thing I don’t have a lot of room to store outdoor Christmas decorations throughout the year and for another, I have a house built in 1840 so I like to decorate a little more old fashioned. Like the old fashioned Buddha you can see on my porch above (cough cough).
So how can you decorate outdoors for little money and without having to store a bunch of stuff all year?
Natural elements and mini lights.
Ideas for Outdoor Christmas Decorating
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- Spray your windows with fake snow. Seriously. This old school technique is cheap and looks great. Spray it in the shape of a drift like you see in the first photo in the post.
- Only spray fake snow if you live in an area that actually gets snow!
- Use pinecones. Run around grab them, then add them to planters, garland and porches.
- Mini lights, mini lights, mini lights. The tiny LED lights on copper strings are my favourite lights right now. There are plugin versions as well as waterproof battery operated versions with timers. They’re great for putting on things that don’t have a plug nearby.
I’ve been buying these same copper wire lights from Amazon for years. I have 6 sets now. What makes them better than almost any other copper wire lights you can buy is the fact that they work with “C” cell batteries, NOT AA. It means the lights are brighter and they last much longer without having to change the batteries. You’ll easily go a whole Christmas season with these lights coming on and going off automatically with them.
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- Add wreaths to anything outside that you look out at often. For me that’s my chicken coop when I walk in my back gate and my potting shed.
- If you’re a traditionalist swag garland over your door. If you’re more contemporary drape them down garden obelisks. Don’t happen to own garden obelisks? Turn a tomato cage upside down on a planter and use that as your form. It looks nicer than it sounds. Honestly.
- Baskets or stacks of firewood by your doorways immediately give a cozy Christmassy feeling too. It doesn’t really matter whether you have a fireplace or not. I mean, it’s the thought that counts, right?
- Burlap ribbon. The cheapest way to do burlap bows is to buy burlap that’s meant for covering up trees from a garden centre and just cutting it into wide strips. By doing this you can make the bows as big and wide as you want. Mine below had taken a bit of a pummelling after an ice storm.
- Steal, grab and chop from within your own yard. Cedar branches, twigs from fallen branches, rose hips, and branches with berries can be made into swags, wreaths, or filler for planters. Just tying them in a bundle and leaving them on a table or chair by the door looks great too.
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- Decorate the areas outside that you can see from the windows of your house.
- I spend a lot of time in my kitchen so I make sure everything I see in my backyard from my kitchen window looks Christmasy. It makes me happy.
- This one’s more over the top but if you have the room fill your yard with little trees with lights. I seem to have collected a bunch from Ikea over the years and threw some battery operated copper wire lights on them.
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- Go to thrift stores. I got the skiis in the back of this photo, leaning on the shed for a few dollars at my local thrift store. Skiis are easy to store because they’re so skinny. And if you don’t like the colour of them, don’t worry about it, you can just spray paint them.
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People automatically assume that if you’re in Canada you have a white Christmas, but where I am in Southern Ontario, there’s actually very little chance of a white Christmas, and if there is snow, it’s usually just a dusting. Of course, it didn’t used to be this way, “When I was a kid … ” and all that.
But in 2013 there was snow. A dusting fell early in December, but that was eclipsed by a major storm that rolled into Ontario from the United States at 2:00 p.m. on December 20th. The ice storm pummelled the province from December 20th to the 22nd, with some cities getting 3 inches of ice and others getting over a foot of snow.
The storm had me seriously regret not making more of an effort to pick up my snow blower from where I store it. Instead I experimented with making a snowblower out of 3 hairdryers, a pile of rope and a remote control Tonka truck. It was an unsuccessful experiment.
I took these photos in 2013 just days before the storm arrived. That wood you see me gathering got me through the storm. Well, not that single armful, many armfuls. I’d go outside in the freezing cold, shovel, shovel, shovel … then come inside, strip my wet mitts and hat off and sit by the fire until I dried out. Then an hour later, I’d do it all over again, punctuating every other trip with a hot dog roasted on the fire. Come to think of it, it was actually the hot dogs that got me through the storm.
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- Well those and the olives. Obviously.
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Your place looks lovely Karen. Great job. We have tons of snow here on Buckhorn Lake. Heading to Fundas for Christmas sure hope your snow lasts. I love a white Christmas.
what’s that black shade like thing hanging from a tree in the last pic?
It’s a solar light. When it’s turned on it creates a big glowing circle on the snow. In the summertime it’s over the centre of my big outdoor table. ~ karen!
You have a beautiful outdoor oasis there. From your photos it really looks like a country Christmas scene not an urban neighbouhood! I need you to come out to our little acre in the woods and make it as peacefully festive. Just gorgeous. Wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas Karen.
Beautiful!
Beautiful. I love the elegant simplicity of the displays.
About that last snow fall. After the driveway is cleared, sometime in the middle of the night the snow plough comes by and leaves an enormous pile worthy of being dubbed a glacier. A pickaxe comes in handy.
Everything looks so festive. I love when people/you decorate the public areas of a home and the private areas that only the home owners get to enjoy. (that kinda sounds weird, but I’m sure you know what I mean)
What do you do with your pond and fish over the winter? From the photo it looks like the water is still water and not ice.
Hi Jody – I keep a pump running in the pond so the constant swirling water keeps it from freezing, so the fish just go into their weird little fish hibernation thing at the bottom of the pond and they’re fine. ~ karen!
This is the great snowstorm of 2013? I’m in North Texas and got 2.5 inches of ICE. Not snow—ICE. I stocked up on food while the storm began and we were trapped inside for five days. As far as my memory recollects, we have never experienced such a thing. And no pictures of the house. It was a skating rink out there. On day four I took a flat-edged shovel and broke a foot-wide path to the garage and the car. It think it odd that you are in Canada and your normal winter looks very much like mine most of the time.
The front porch is beautiful, especially the chair. I’ve decided that I need to plant holly. Down here pine wreaths, cedar branches, and holly for decorating are wildly expensive. Two branches of birch wood for $20? No way. Did you make the pillars to hold up the pine garland yourself? Those can be very expensive also.
It was good to see our friends, the chickens. That gate is still one of my favorite ideas that you have had. Good luck during the shoot.
Rondina – Oh no … these pictures were taken well before the storm hit. :) There’s currently a foot of snow outside and another few inches coming, just ahead of ANOTHER storm which apparently is going to bring 2 days of freezing rain. So don’t worry, lol. I heard about YOUR storm on the news by the way. It was terrible! ~ karen
Beautiful home, Karen. Stay warm and merry on this Christmas, surrounded by friends and loved ones. Rest up good honey, because spring is just around the corner and the local men have just been biding the appropriate period of civility before they start dropping courtship gifts off on your front porch…bird houses, bottles of homemade wine, photos of himself without a shirt on…a shawl mommy made for his new intended…er, you may need to install some electronic devices, nothing too extreme, perhaps a video cam just for a little help differentiating the hunky well intended from the borderline nuts. Cuz you’re a beautiful woman and an exceptional human being…Cheers!
Aw, well thanks Mia! But I’m liking this being alone for now. :) Unless of course the shawl is REALLY nice. ~ karen
Lovely, your front porch is always my favourite. From the trees down to your floor mat!
I have the weekend off and all my shopping done – hunkering down & crocheting a few last gifts and building a fort with my kid. Did you stock up on potato chips yet?
I hope to get out today for potato chips before the next storms come in, lol. ~ karen!
I want to live at your house :) but only for Christmas. It’s so beautiful, with and without Christmas magic. After that, I’d have to come back to Florida because my thin blood can’t take the cold. Can’t wait for the magazine spread.
Beautiful, inside and out. You and your Christmas house! Our fireplace has been on bust for the last week with the weather we’ve been having. Snow and then rain. It’s like shovelling porridge or cement, depending on how long you wait to go out and shovel.
I love the earthiness of your decor, so welcoming and warm. Even the front porch looks inviting to stop & sit a spell, except that I know it’s bloody cold. From what sort of establishment do you acquire your burlap? Surely not an expensive crafty spot targeting interior designers. Farm or garden supply? Thanks. Merry Christmas, Karen!
Hi Molly – The burlap is from my local garden store. 50 cents a foot or something like that … and it’s really wide. Good deal. ~ karen!
Oooh. I wonder if I can get burlap at MY garden store…
I love your front porch, Karen! And I too was thinking, who’s going to sit out there in the cold? Funny thing is, I put a wreath on my door and lights up to the front porch, but lately I’ve been going in through the basement door (shorter route to the kitchen). I guess I’m going to have to take some pictures to appreciate my work. I think I still have a broken light string and 10,000 pine needles on my porch too, so I’ll have to clean up before taking those pictures.
I guess that’s why I have dinner parties – to clean up. Maybe if I was dedicated to posting pictures of my lovely house, I’d have to make my house lovely more often. Hmm… I’ll have to think about that.
I used to believe that snow, like paint, could cover a multitude of sins. Now I’ve reached the venerable age when I start to shudder at mere photos of the white stuff. Thank goodness for neighbours (and the fact that our region of the Maritimes was spared the worst of the last three storms :) Merry Everything to you and all your readers, Karen, from northeastern New Brunswick!
Living in the geographical center of Saskatchewan (which to many delusional folks is the far, far north where the Polar bears roam, Igloos are our digs and the preferred mode of transportation is dog-sled – NOT) I try my best to sympathize with you and your ON snow storm. There is a little, tiny bit of me that feels sorry for you and your snowy dilemma . . . Itsy, teeny, weeny, tiny bit – not a lick more! You see it’s been a bitch of a winter for SK thus far – temperatures plummeting in the minus 30 range, with a wind that blows up your skirt that equals anywhere from minus 40 to minus 50 and snowstorms dumping inches upon inches of snow – clearly not a good winter to go panty-less in my apron and Little-House-on-the-Prairie-style dress! I am so over winter – blech, blech, blech!!! S0 to console you and me – did I mention I was narcissistic – I have the ultimate solution! I will move to ON to be your roomy! I will haul the wood in the blustery snowstorm. I will shovel your driveway. I will dutifully “unsnow” the chickens after the storms. I would gladly do all that just to endure ON winter vs. SK winter! Yes! All that if you just let me sit on your front porch, swill wine with your Ma and occasionally let me roast hot dogs on the fire with you! Oh, and I promise to wear panties under my skirt! Cheers!
Hah! Oh I know. Saskatchewan winters are gross. On the upside, they’re only 8 months long. ~ karen!
The yard looks great. I can not have anything on the porch. The wind will take it away or the deer will eat it. Yes, they do walk on my porch.
Love all your natural decorations…beautiful!! It just looks so inviting! And that was just the right amount of snow in the pictures…..but a foot??? Not so much! Merry Christmas Karen !
Your place is gorgeous! I have to admit though I was very worried about the chickens. Are they okay in the snow? Feel free to send all of your extra snow to me here in Decatur, Georgia. We never get any
My outdoor Christmas decorations are a single gourd that got moved from dining table to stoop when I decided fall was over. I’m amazing.
You really are. ~ karen
Where are the pictures of the great Tonka Truck experiment?
Or will that be the subject for tonight/tomorrow morning ???
LOL. It has been retired only to be resurrected under the most dire of circumstances. ~ karen
Would 2 feet of fresh snowfall and record low temperatures be considered “dire” enough for said resurrection? I’m just looking for a glimmer of hope to see the big-yellow-truck- contraption-thing-a-ma-bob You devised.
Perhapos I should just get a hobby.
It’s all beautiful!! What kind of tree is that in the last picture (with you pictured) ?
I’m not good with snow. Don’t like to be in it. But the amount of snow in your pictures is exactly the correct amount of snow everyone should get at Christmastime. Beautiful. Perfect. Your outdoor decorations are scrumptious. Instead of being jealous, I’ve decided to be magnanimous and wish you a Merry Christmas. Under all that new snow I don’t have to see or shovel. Ho ho ho!
Are you terrific or what! Love you! We store our wood in the garage…it’s a pain!…but we also have some in the cellar…for those nights when we just can’t face going out in the snow/wind/cold. Love from Maine!
Gorgeous decorations. You have mighty fine taste, Karen B. :-)
God bless that neighbor! Where are the mitts? I was about to ask if you had tan coloured (<—Ca spelling) gloves, but then you said "mitts" and I thought "Oh no! KB is shivering in the cold and probably got her fingers stuck on her Tonka truck."
Thank heaven for that neighbor…
Your place looks beautiful! If you need some snow over Christmas let me know – be glad to ship some down from Midland. I have already run out of places to put it. Seriously. Just ask.
Hah! No. NO. I’m currently looking at about a foot of snow. And I too have nowhere to put it. Plus this weekend there are 2 storms coming in. Which will either be rain, snow, sleet or freezing rain. The weathermen won’t know until it has actually been falling for around 7 hours. ~ karen!