Another Blog Creation of Jules

I can’t remember the last time I have been more excited for the Holiday Season to start than this year. 2009 was a tough year any way you slice it, but nothing cures my blues better than to see my entire neighborhood lit up with Christmas yard decorations…And it won’t be long now!

My wife tells me that every year I am unpacking our boxes of outdoor decorations earlier than the year before. When I was a kid, my father used to set them up like clockwork the first Saturday after Thanksgiving…rain or shine. But today, you can see stores like Home Depot setting up their Christmas displays even before Halloween.

And believe me, these are not your father’s Christmas yard decorations! Today you will find everything from motorized inflatable Santas to holograhic holiday yard art gracing the front lawns of even the sleepiest houses in your home town. In fact, this year your Christmas display is limited only by your imagination (and budget of course!).

But before you rush out to your nearest home center, take a moment to plan out exactly how you would like your new Holiday display to look when your in-laws pull in the driveway on Christmas Day. Your front yard will be the talk of the neighborhood if you follow these simple tips to install your Christmas yard decorations this year.

Question #1: Do you have an electrical outlet in you front yard?… This is very important! If you do have access to power, proceed to the next step. If not, then you still have a couple of options:

1. There are actually many kinds of Chistmas yard decorations that do not require any electricity at all, like a nativity scene, outdoor tree ornaments, garlands and bows. Setting these up under a streetlight will illuminate them at night without any lighting of your own.

2. Thanks to new technology developed in the North Pole, you can find many new solar-powered decorations like string lighting available in 2009…These are also great for to lighting up trees and shrubs far away from the house.

3. If all else fails, you can do what my neighbor does to light a big evergreen tree in his back yard: Run a couple hundred feet of extension cord out to this remote location (be sure to use a cord with 12-guage wire for this!)

But you have plenty of juice to light up your front yard, then the sky is the limit! You can start with some lighting close to the house, like icicle lights strung along your roofline or across your front porch. Net lighting also looks great installed over some bushes, shrubbery, and small trees.

But if you’re ready to make your front yard look like Santa’s village this year, then go right ahead! If you find yourself overwhelmed by the huge variety of Christmas lawn decorations to choose from, it’s often useful to pick a theme first: Santa Clause, toy sodiers, the Nativity, holiday characters, Rudoph the Red Nosed Reindeer, candy canes, snowmen,…and the list goes on and on.

Are you going with colored lights, or will you keep it traditional with only white string lighting? Traditional or contemporary? By the way, it’s a good idea at this point (ahem) to consult your spouse before making any big decisions about what the front of the house will look like for three months out of the year.

And here’s the last word on buying your new Christmas yard decorations…You get what you pay for. Today you can find decorations manufacted in dozens of countries to various — and often poor — quality standards. Often these products do not even come with a UL electrical rating. Therefore, if you find an mechanical Santa being sold at an amazing price from an unknown vendor online, you may have good reason to be suspicious about the quality and safety of this product.

And here’s the most important ingredients to a successful holiday display: have lots of fun with it! And with that let me wish you and your family a very merry Christmas season, and a joyful and prosperous New Year.

Discover the hottest Christmas yard decorations for 2009 before your neighbor does! Find them all right here this year…

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Filed under: Gifts