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.
- 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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NikiDee
Beautiful! Again, I am inspired for my next year decor. However....out of all those photos - which one do I focus all my attention on? Which shot makes the hair on my arms bristle (I'd say hair on my back but: TMI)...the last shot that includes that DIVINE lampshade. How? Where? When? Did I miss the post? True love.
Karen
Hi NikiDee - That's a solar light from Ikea! ~ karen
Jennifer
So lovely! Great pics! Hey, Karen I made this fabulous fire wood stacking thingy! Not a screw/nail used to make it! Plus it holds tons of wood! Thought I'd pass the idea along to you. http://www.instructables.com/id/No-tools-firewood-rack/ I used T posts for the sides since I have so many. Stay warm! Shall I whip your girls up some nice warm fleece chicken jackets?
Karen
Hi Jennifer! I've actually taken to a traditional way of stacking where you stack boxes of wood on the side of your pile basically. I was going to do a post on it. But I *will* take a look at your instructable. ~ karen!
Erica O
Based on your failed snowblower experiment, I see the potential for another sort of column: Experiment Fails.
There will need to be pictures, of course.
But, for serious, that little beginning snow looks beautiful on the shed windows.
I hope the chickens are staying warm! Did you have to tie a rope from your back door to the chicken coop (to follow through the blizzard) so you could go out every few hours to break the ice on their water? Or do they have heated water? Were they in there playing poker and smoking cigars (not a good idea around hay), laughing at you as you freeze your butt off gathering wood to roast hot dogs? Chickens are sometimes very mocking.
Elaine
Your home is beautiful and so inviting.
Amy Watson
Karen, I have not followed you for very long, and have NEVER been a " blog" person, but I just love your blog, your sense of humor is very much like mine, and l love....love.....love your house and chickens and chicken coop, being a South Georgia gal transplanted here in Fl. for a few years, I have met a few Canadians, and l think you are really a Southerner underneath, l mean with the chickens and bacon and cussing like a sailor, you would fit right in, just sayin'. :)
Lynn
Unbelievably gorgeous... (quite like you). Please tell me you "painted" the snow on the windows of the coop. If not, Jack Frost has a crush on you.
Karen
Sadly no one has a crush on me, I painted them. :) ~ karen
Anna Starner
I love your outdoor decor. How about a little info on the trellis with the greens and lights? I would also take a visit next November and you could show me how in person. I guess out figured out I love the trellis with the lights and garland (is that what you used?) and will be copying them here in Central PA next year.
Karen
Those are obelisques from the summertime. I just put them in my planters and ran fresh garland down each of the tines. Then I ran tiny lights over them. Voila! Done. ~ karen!
Sherri Hanigan
Here in eastern Nebraska we're scheduled for some freezing rain tonight, which is my least favorite form of winter weather. Give me 6-12" of snow instead with gale force winds instead and I would be a happy woman. Icy rain collects on the power lines and when they grow heavy we have power outages. We live in a rural area and have our own well. No electricity means no running water and no forced air heat. That means I have to pee in a bucket holding layers of clothing out of the way and poop under a low-hanging branch on one of our trees. I don't like pooping outside so I tend to avoid it as long as possible, which means I have a tendency to get "backed up" until the power goes back on. We've been without power for as long as three days. That's a long time with no pooping. The aftermath is not pleasant and, at my age, it takes days to get the old plumbing moving freely (I'm still talking about pooping, folks). So...take this icy weather and shove it! Not you, Karen. I don't want you to shove anything. In fact, forget I used that phrase at all. I've read your blog long enough to know that once an idea is planted in your head, you will eventually bring it to fruition. No shoving anything, please. I don't want you to get hurt. If you get hurt, you might have to skip writing your blog posts for a while and I couldn't take that. Not with this impending freezing rain. Really.
Karen
Hmmm ... shove it ... that's got me to thinking ... Yup! It seems dangerous but I'M GONNA TRY IT! Thanks Sherri! Wish me luck! ~ karen
Sally A.
I am in Green Bay, Wisconsin...supposed to be flying to Texas on Monday...right in the middle of the storm you're probably talking about! Yippee.
Your home is GEORGEOUS! I love it!!
Feral Turtle
I love your yard. When I get my own chickens, I am going to decorate their pen too. I just get tired of all the skunks that seem to go hand in hand with chickens here.....which makes me rethink my decision of getting chickens again :( Anyways glad you fared your storm okay. We had another burst yesterday here in southern Alberta. I love winter but come on!!
Ev
Nice that you gave the girls their own wreath! Maybe hung lower and made out of field corn on the cob would be nice for Christmas morn. Don't forget to be with them at midnight on Christmas eve-that's when animals talk, you know. 'Course, your girls prob talk with you a lot already! Nice pics, thanks.
Deb J
I was surprised to see your wood pile all willy-nilly. Waaaay back when I first discovered you I made my first ever comment on ANY blog to your post about stacking wood. You had just bought some plastic forms that hold 2x4's. Where did they go? Or did the kitchen reno overtake the wood stacking? Certainly would in my house! Love the decorations by the way. I'm pretty good inside but get lazy outside. Front door/step, some lights - and here in Ottawa - often feet and feet of snow!
Karen
Hi Deb J - The wood had only been delivered a day earlier. I got it moved from the road to the backyard and the next step was stacking it. It's almost stacked now, and more is arriving on the weekend. :) ~ karen!
Deb J
You are a better man than I am gunga din:)
Kelly
we live in London On, where we had a 73 cm dump on the last Sunday in November followed by another 20 or so the following Wed. What was fun about that one was hearing from coworkers who live 20 minutes to the south or west that they got NOTHING. After that, the regular 25 cm seems like, well, chicken feed even if you can't see the chickens. And I suspect Victoria thinking the snow is beautiful means she LIVES in Victoria and doesn't have to shove.
Karen
Yeah. London is in a bit of a funny location isn't it. It's at the centre of all systems. They call this general area the snow belt, so I guess London would be the snow belt buckle. ~ karen
Rose
Your place looks so beautiful. Lovely vignettes all over the place! That's gotta be fake snow on the window panes of the shed. Should be in a magazine.
Karen
Thanks Rose! And yup. That's fake snow. I put it on the panes for fun and I actually really like it. I'm not sure if you're kidding about the magazine spread or not, lol. You see, I did a post on Monday announcing that Canadian Living magazine was coming to shoot the inside and outside of my house for their December 2014 Christmas issue. ~ karen!
korrine
Love it. Love you. Love it all!
Maggie V
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.
gogothrift@etsy.com
what's that black shade like thing hanging from a tree in the last pic?
Karen
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!
KimC
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.
Ruth
Beautiful!
Reg
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.