Bring Christmas to the yard: 9 irresistible outdoor decorating ideas
Turn your backyard into a Christmas wonderland: hang ornaments and lights on tree or shrub branches, set up a mulled-wine station, and finish the magic with ice lanterns and clever displays.
The holiday mood doesn’t have to start at the front door or end in the entryway. Spread the decorations you love throughout the yard to enjoy the spirit of the season in a whole new way.
The best decorations are handmade, and your imagination is the only limit. You can often find materials right in your garden or out in nature—just be sure you know what you’re allowed to gather and what you’re not.
Complement your handmade pieces with string lights, ready-made wreaths, and all kinds of lanterns, which are wonderfully easy to use thanks to LED technology.
1. A new role for the kicksled
Kicksleds parked along the path to the sauna and lit with hurricane lanterns are instant mood-lifters. Here, the wooden crate set on the runners of the larger kicksled is filled with spruce saplings dressed with a string of lights; on Christmas Eve, they’re carried indoors as decorations. Suet balls hanging from the sled’s crosspiece are a gift for the birds. A boxwood wreath adorns the kids’ sled.
2. A mulled-wine moment outdoors
What warms cheeks faster than steaming-hot mulled wine and a joyful mood? Pile your favorite treats onto a tray and share a small, glowing celebration with your nearest and dearest.
3. Dress up the spruce in your yard
Turn ordinary Christmas ornaments into little works of art with acrylic paint. The easiest motif to paint is evergreen sprigs. Hang the finished ornaments outside on the branches of the spruce or another conifer. [in Finnish]
4. The Christmas sauna is calling
Dress up the porch or an outbuilding to radiate a Christmas vibe, too. For easy decorating, lean on wreaths, lanterns, baskets, hyacinths, and evergreen boughs—whatever comes to mind.
5. Adorn ice lanterns with branches
Decorate an ice lantern with larch branches. Alder works beautifully too! Try different freezing times. A thin layer of ice is clear and lovely but breaks easily. Melt the frozen lantern free of the bucket, make a hole in the bottom, and gently pour out the excess water.
6. Create your own light installation
Glowing spheres hanging from trees look like something out of a fairy tale. Hang one—or several—LED decorative lights from a branch.
7. Light in the window
A window sash that’s missing a few panes makes a pretty frame for outdoor decor. Hang it on, say, the garden shelter wall, wrap it with outdoor string lights, and place ornaments in the open squares. Frost will paint the remaining glass with frost flowers. Arrange pots, plates, and rose candles in front of the window.
8. What’s hanging in the lantern?
A candle lantern, a string of lights, and a few tulips make a delicate outdoor decoration that the frost finishes into something unforgettable.
9. A log candle burns beautifully and for a long time
The log candle, popularized by woodsmen, is traditionally sawn from dead-standing pine, but a fresh section of pine or spruce works, too. The cross-cut portion is at the top of the upright log. Start the fire inside it with kindling or a little lighter fluid.
