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Friday, November 25, 2016

How to Decorate Your House and Yard for the Christmas Holidays

Simple Tips to Decorate Your House for Christmas
Make Christmas a special time for you and your guests by decorating your house in a special and unique way
Christmas is a special time for everyone. Furthermore, many people decorate for Christmas and go around the neighborhoods around Christmas time to admire how other houses are decorated for the holidays.
There are many things to take into consideration in decorating your home and yard for Christmas. There are many different types of holiday lights that you can buy for both inside and outside. The trick is how to decorate your home inside and out and make it stunning and the talk of the neighborhood as well as making your home a cozy place full of holiday spirit for your family and friends.
Lighting is very important for the Holidays. Usually when people tour the neighborhoods at Christmas time is during the evening, when it is nice and dark and the holiday lights are on bright display. You can have a lot of Christmas lights on your house, and it looks nice, but you want it to look nice, not gaudy.
For example, if you have a nice suburban home, you want the lighting to look neat and beautiful, not like the trailer park where everything just slopped together. Different types of lighting for outside use and how they should be displayed are listed below.
1. Chaser lights can be some awesome lighting but if use too much, these lights can be very annoying. Chaser lights are lights that blink on and off in a chasing type of motion. Many chaser lights are controlled by a special control box that is attached to the strand near the plug. This control box can control how the chaser lights function and the speed of the lights.
2. Sparkling lights are also chaser lights. If you buy a strand of chaser lights, you look at the control box and you will see different modes for the chaser lights. Sparkling lights are chaser lights that are in slow mode. Sparkling lights have a much better effect than chasers do. When you have chasers running in the fastest mode possible, it can drive some people nuts, but on the other hand, other people like those kinds of lights.
3. Colored lights versus white lights is probably one of the thoughts that comes to mind when deciding what types of Christmas lights you want to install for the holidays. Both are great, but where to place them is the question. Chaser lights work best when they are multi-colored.
If you choose to place chaser lights on your home in fast mode, the best place would be either on the roofline of your house or along your fence line on the front end of your property. Never use chaser lights together with icicle lights. That just does not look good. You can also buy chaser lights that are all white or another particular color.
If you choose to use the sparkle mode and want to have sparkling lights in your yard, you should use white lights. White sparkling lights look great on your evergreens and bare bushes that have a neat look in the wintertime, such as a crooked man bush. White sparkling lights have a special effect when there is a lot of snow.
4. Icicle lights are special light strands that have wires with the lights dangling down from the roofline giving the icicle effect. These lights are very beautiful on the rooflines and gables of your house. The key to make icicle lights look good is use only white icicle lights. Lately, there are many icicle lights that come in different colors, but for these lights, white is best to resemble the natural color of the icicles.
5. Colored lights can also be used outside in the yard. The best place for colored lights outside is on your pine trees. If you have tall fir trees that have that traditional Christmas tree shape, colored lights are the best. They will turn those fir trees and spruces that you have in your yard into outside Christmas trees.
6. Special shaped lights of all kinds of shapes and sizes are also available at most of your major stores around the Holidays. Some of these lights can be great accent lights in your yard. One of the favorites is the ball or star lights. These are large balls that are sometimes shaped as round stars or spheres that hang from their power cord. These lights are great to hang from some of your landscape trees in your front yard. These lights will look like glowing Christmas tree balls.
7. Flood and spot lights can also be used to shine on certain yard decorations such as Nativity scenes.
8. White reindeer lights are also beautiful decorations. However, if you live in the woods, you should find some sticks and a small piece of a large tree trunk and parts of a tree root. With these ingredients, you can make your own natural looking reindeer and wrap them with white Christmas lights that have green wire. This can be a wonderful accent to your yard at Christmas time.
Choosing your Christmas tree
You are done decorating your yard and Thanksgiving weekend is here. It's the traditional time to get the Christmas tree in the United States. There are many places that sell both live and artificial Christmas trees.
Though you might prefer a live tree, there are many artificial trees available that look like the real thing and mimic the various different varieties of Christmas tree breeds from balsam firs to the Scotch pine. If you do choose to go with a real Christmas tree, some of the things to check are:
1. Look at several trees before making your selection. Check and make sure the tree is healthy and will last throughout the entire holiday season. Avoid buying a live Christmas tree from a big-box store unless it is a live tree that is in a pot. Cut trees may not be kept in water and be already dry and losing needles.
2. Shake the tree before choosing it. Shaking the tree is a good way to test it and make sure that it does not lose any needles. If a tree looses needles, do not buy it. The best tree to buy is a Frazier fir. These trees last the longest when indoors.
3. Keep water in the stand. Most cut trees sold at Christmas tree places are usually kept outside and in a cold climate, so they will not dry out as fast out in the cold as they would inside where there is dry warmth. The water will keep the Christmas tree moist and prevent it from drying out until the Holidays are over.
4. Do not leave Christmas lights on the tree on when you are not home or when you cannot see the tree. Remember, that live evergreens can be highly flammable when kept in a warm and dry environment. If you like to have your Christmas tree lights on a timer, you are better off buying an artificial tree that is required by law to be made from fire-retardant materials.
Christmas tree lights and other lights for inside
There is a wide variety of Christmas tree lights available for everyone's taste. You can get lights that can be shaped as Christmas tree ornaments or candles, etc. Some of the more beautiful lights to get for your Christmas tree are:
1. Bubble lights are an American Christmas classic. Bubble lights are lights that have a special light bulb that fits into a C-7 light socket. The actual light bulb is in a cup and has a glass tube with different colored petroleum-based fluids which bubble when they get hot. This can create some wonderful effects.
These lights have been popular in the United States since the 1940s and 1950s. This is a great choice for those of you who like the classic style. A warning about these lights though. Take special care not to break them and keep children away from them.
The fluid that bubbles is highly toxic. If one of those bulbs does break, immediately discard any clothing that the fluid comes into contact and wash the area of the break very well.
2. Candle lights are another popular Christmas light and another excellent choice for those of you who like the classic Christmas look. You can get Christmas tree lights that have candles on strands which can be clamped to the branches of your Christmas tree.
There are also candle lights that are made to be placed at the window. These larger candle lights for the windows take a regular C-7 bulb. You can also give your indoor window lights that extra pizzazz when you get a spare bubble light bulb to screw into the window candle light.
Imagine the look of C-7 candle lights at the windows with the extra bubble light. This can make your house the talk of the neighborhood during Christmas time.
3. Chaser and sparkling lights can also be used inside as well as outside for lighting. On the Christmas tree, sparkling lights are the best and can give your Christmas tree that sparkling look.
Ornaments
Ornaments are a must for any Christmas tree. Ornaments come in all different shapes, colors, sizes, and made from different kinds of materials. Some ornaments can be family memorabilia, whereas others can be glass and plastic or wood.
1. Glass ornaments are the classic. There are many small curio shops and import shops throughout the United States that sell glass ornaments that are hand-made in several eastern European countries such as Poland, Romania and the former republics of the Soviet Union.
Some of these glass ornaments are not your typical balls. Many of them are elliptical shapes. Others are decorated with glitter and some are done in the shapes of pine cones and other things that have to do with the Christmas motif. Most of these imported glass ornaments are hand-blown and the glass has different mineral additives to give off the color.
2. Straw ornaments are another wonderful addition to your Christmas tree decorations. Straw ornaments are traditionally made in Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia. Each country has its own style and these are also handmade and are very beautiful.
3. Figurines are an American classic. You can get all kinds of Christmas figurines that are made for the Christmas tree. Some of these figurines are of the familiar Christmas characters such as Santa Clause, elves, nut crackers and tin soldiers. You can get figurine ornaments from other countries as well. Russian imported ornaments that are made from wood and painted to look like traditional men and women in ethnic dress are very beautiful.
Other unique decorations
If you are the multicultural type, look for different decorations to buy or even try your hand at making your own decorations. One nice decoration is the Georgian Chichilaki. The Chichilaki looks like a white Christmas tree and really stands out.
How to make the Georgian Chichilaki
1. Take a wooden rod which is made of a wood that can be carved thinly and the shavings are long.
2. Carefully carve the rod with a sharp knife to make sure the shavings do not come apart. Do not carve the shavings all the way to the end of the rod. When you carve the rod enough that the shavings start to fill out and form the shape of a Christmas tree, take a small flat piece of wood to affix to the bottom of the Chichilaki with a small nail and glue.
3. Get some green ivy leaves and winter berries and carefully glue them to the shavings. You can also find some seed pods from flowers outside.
Another unique decoration is the German advent wreath. This is very simple to do.
All you need to do is to cut some evergreen branches and place them on a round tray in a wreath form. Decorate the wreath with four red candles that are tapered to be smaller at the top. Light the first candle at the fourth to last Sunday before Christmas, then the following Sunday the second, you get the picture. Then by Christmas Eve, all four candles are to be lit.
There are many more ideas that you can come up with to decorate for Christmas. If you are creative and artistic, the sky is the limit and you can have your place uniquely decorated for Christmas.
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