Decorating for the festive season doesn’t have to finish indoors. Once your interior is prepped for the holidays, there’s plenty of ideas to bring the festivities outside and into your yard. Plus, showing off your yard space with a festive makeover can provide a great entertaining space as well as a picture perfect postcard display for guests to enjoy from the warmth of your home while gazing out your doors or windows.
While there’s decorations that will make your home look tacky, there’s plenty of options for creating a winter wonderland in your yard that will make you feel cozy and festive. Each of our ideas are fairly inexpensive and easy ways to decorate because we don’t need any more tasks around the holiday season along with gift buying and making Christmas dinner.
Adding more decorations to the collection can be off-putting, but we’ve got plenty of top tips for storing Christmas decorations that will make the whole process a whole lot less stressful. So, without further a-Christmas-do, let’s take a look at how you can bring joy and good tidings to your yard for the holiday season.
1. Be merry and bright
An (almost) cardinal rule when it comes to holiday decorating is to use lights to harness the festive vibe. Lights have another function when it comes to your yard and that’s illuminating all your decorations. It’d be such a shame if you put in all the effort to enrich your yard and then no-one can see it to enjoy it.
So, to keep the festivities merry and bright, we’d recommend using lanterns, fairy lights, pillar candles in vases, and grapevine balls wrapped in twinkly lights. It’s important that you check that any lights you do purchase are suited to the outdoors though. It may not be possible for your lights to reach an outlet, so outdoor lights are often battery-powered or solar-powered meaning you can place them wherever you want. They also use a longer-lasting bulb like LEDs to make sure you’re getting the most out of running them outside.
When it comes to candlelight, you should consider using fake candles for your outdoor decorating. Check out the best solar lights for some recommendations.
2. Cozy is key
If you want to utilize your yard in the wintery months, making it cozy and inviting is key. This should act as a focal point for your decorating as it will be where you and your guests will gather when it’s cold outside. If you don’t, then you can instead opt for an area of your yard that is protected as much as possible from the elements. Under cover is best here as it will protect your decorations from the wind, rain, and snow.
To create a cozy spot, use sheepskin seat covers for their insulating properties, blankets and cushions, fairy lights and candles. Be sure to bring your cozy accessories indoors when it gets wet though, or you’ll be ruining all your hard work.
3. Mix faux with natural greenery
Natural greenery is always a lovely addition to your yard, but when it comes to holiday-themed plants like Poinsettia and Holly, you may not have them planted and ready to show off. For this, you can incorporate faux greenery in with your pre-existing plants to bring the holidays to your year-round yard.
Incorporating faux plants like pine cones, cranberries, evergreen sprigs, fresh potted trees and moss are all perfect options for creating that festive feel. Whether you opt for real or faux plants, they can be woven into your garden displays or placed individually to create entirely new holiday displays. For natural additions, they’ll require maintenance and the right conditions to thrive. So, with faux plants, your decorations will have more chance of surviving the harsh winter conditions and can be packed away to use for years and years ahead.
4. Go big on decorations
How many decorations you choose to use across your yard is a completely unique and independent choice. But, when we say to go big on decorations, we don’t mean quantity. For this, we mean supersizing your decorations so that they’re easily spotted in your yard and can add a different and more dramatic effect to your yard decorations as opposed to your indoor ones.
Oversized baubles are becoming an incredibly popular choice, or fake presents made of wood and metal, or the more usual Christmas ornaments in larger than your average décor sizes. We’d recommend using plastic ornaments for your outdoor decorations to avoid breakage and the fallout of any broken parts in your yard affecting your family and friends, and wildlife.
5. Add a festive touch to everyday items
Your yard is a year-round part of your home and so, there will no doubt be items in your yard that, at other times of the year, are just simply there for everyday use. Take a bike, for example. It may be propped up against your fence waiting for the next time you take it for a ride. In the holiday season though, an everyday item like a bike can take a whole new form with festive decorations used to breathe jolly life into them.
For a bike, you could wrap fairy lights around the body and handlebars. Or say for a bucket, you could upturn it and place a glass vase with an LED pillar candle on top. For a bench, you could lay festive-colored blankets and themed cushions on top to transform it into a small grotto space in your yard. This festive tip can breathe a new lease of life and seasonal festivities into day-to-day objects.
6. Create winter planters
If you’re feeling crafty, creating your own winter planters is a great decoration for easily moving around your yard. You can utilize pre-existing planters, buy new ones or even make your own out of a log, and then all you need to do is fill the pot with soil, use large branches like birch tree branches, and decorate with greenery. As mentioned before, natural or faux works well here, depending on how much maintenance you want to do.
7. Dashings of fake snow
Depending on where you live, you may get snow during the holiday season, or you may not. Either way, there’s always a use for fake snow when it comes to decorating your yard. Being in control of the snow spray or bags of fake snow for sprinkling in the best spots means you can set up your festive decorations without being disturbed by lack of snow, or melting slush.
Fake snow is also excellent for lining glasses or vases before placing decorations like baubles and string lights within them to add that wintery feel. Or, the spray is great for framing the windows to the back of your home to make the whole winter scene of your yard that little bit more festive.
Bonus: Set a festive scene
Last but not least, if you’re keen to go all out on your festive décor, setting up a holiday scene can be the perfect way to make a focal point to your yard design. Whether you opt for a fake or fresh potted tree, you can decorate it as you would your indoor tree, lay fake presents around its base, hang stockings on your fence and even place a traditional wooden sleigh amongst the plants.
Of course, the items you use outside should be prepared for the elements so opting for outdoor-friendly materials or placing your festive scene undercover is a great idea to make sure it’s not ruined by the time Christmas swings around.
