This was my first time ever decorating the outside of a house for Christmas!  Up until now I’ve always lived in apartments, where more often than not it wasn’t even possible to do so.  Now that we live in a single family home I am so thrilled that I finally had the opportunity to try my hand at adorning our front porch with garland, Christmas lights and festive red bows!  And now I have a newfound respect for people who go all out with decorations every year 🙂  I tried my best to make things symmetrical (they aren’t), I didn’t buy enough strands of garland (maybe next year), but I’m so happy with how it turned out since this was my first shot at doing this.  This 97 year old Craftsman rental home of ours brings our family lots of joy and it’s fun to see it all decked out for the holidays.

Traditional Outdoor Christmas Decorations

I used 2 strands of 50 foot pre-lit garland, which is great for wrapping posts like I did here.  I was able to mostly use the tops of the columns and the hanging basket hooks to support the garland, but did also use a few of these small 3M hooks where needed.  I bought this 12 foot battery powered garland for over the front door and I love that it has a timer on it.  The little live Christmas tree to the left of the door has colored lights on it because I thought the kids would think they were fun.  I’ve always loved the look of white lights but turns out I love this playful pop of color amongst the more traditional white lights.  I hid the tree stand in a small basket that we had on hand and I love how that turned out.  The simple doormat is only $12.99, and I used a small hook to hang each of the red bows on the front posts.  The wreath on our front door is a live one, but I added small artificial wreaths to the three windows that face the street.  I also added lights to the large azalea and the Japanese maple tree!

This festive outfit was so much fun to wear.  This top is an affordable tartan and ruffled one from J.Crew Factory, my black jeans fits like a glove if you have a curvier shape like I do (they’re called the curvy toothpick and they’re cut a little differently than the traditional toothpick jeans are so that they fit your larger hips without gaping at the waist), and my tartan loafers were a festive way to pull it all together.  Mine are old from last year but this current version is very cute too.  I added a red velvet hair bow to a low ponytail and wore simple gold hoop earrings.  My monogrammed tartan mug can be found here.  It’s microwave and dishwasher safe!

Here is what our house looks like in the dark!  It’s not perfect or grand but it certainly sparks joy, and that’s exactly what we need right about now 🙂

Did you decorate the outside of your house for Christmas this year?

Katie Vail

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