Too many Christmas lights?
Create the look that’s right for your home
Q: What should I keep in mind when decorating my yard with lights and fun inflatables at Christmastime? A: Allison Duffy, category business manager for Christmas lights at Canadian Tire, says that the amount of outdoor decor — lights, inflatable snowmen, animatronic deer, etc. — depends on the size of your lawn or yard, but most importantly your personal preferences.
One person’s idea of style may be very different from someone else’s, but the ultimate goal is to create a festive look through illumination.
“Things that have sentimental value sometimes don’t go with other things, and that’s OK,” she says.
“(Christmas) is all about having the look that you like and something that you’re comfortable with, as opposed to something that’s fully coordinated.”
Duffy does offer a few ways to create a look that’s simple and unified. To start, ask yourself if you want to follow a specific theme. Multicoloured lights tend to be a bit more kidfriendly and go with inflatable pieces or other fun icons, like Santa Clauses and snowmen. White lights, on the other hand, give a cleaner, more elegant feel.
Cartoon-type inflatables might not work well with accents like deer at first glance, but Duffy says the two can coexist peacefully on your front lawn if you simplify your house lights by going with white.
You can also use a colour scheme to bring the two styles together.
White lights can be used as a base colour, for example, which can be accented with red figures to create a peppermint swirl theme.
“Symmetry is also nice when you have pieces on your lawn.”
Some individuals might have contrasting strands of lights in various shades of white (warm white has an incandescent glow, and pure white features an absence of colour). To tie the two together, Canadian Tire has created strands of LED lights that incorporate both warm and pure whites.
“Another thing is to choose the light-bulb size that’s appropriate for the area you’re applying it to. Typically a larger bulb is used along a roof line. Mini bulbs ... are typically used to decorate porches and shrubs and things like that. If you had really, really large lights on a little tree, it might seem out of proportion.”
Ultimately, though, Duffy says outdoor decorating comes down to how much money and time you want to invest in lights and accents.
“There’s no such thing as too many lights. It’s about creating the look that’s right for you.”