Hang Wreaths On Your Windows, step by step

“Can we make it like the Home Alone house?” That was Clara’s quote about decorating the outside of our house for Christmas. She loves “Kevin and Bros” as she calls them (yes, Buzz = Bros to her), and has even picked up that they have a similar type of house to ours – albeit a ton bigger and fancier. So we did some family brainstorming (listened to Clara tell us what we should do) and came up with the following plan:

• wreaths hung in every window with gold ribbon (no other colors were even close to being right according to Miss Clara)
• some lighted garland around the front portico
• plug-in candles in every windowsill like we had in our last house (Clara has consistently enjoyed those, and we had exactly the right amount, so we simply reused ’em)
• our three little red lanterns full o’ twinkle lights from Ikea a few years ago
• real seals with red Santa hats on the roof (this one was Clara’s most imaginative suggestion, but I am afraid we had to nix it for animal rights reasons)

Here is where we ended up.

I think my go-to things are the wreaths in every window (they look simply as lively from the inside looking out). Or the lighted garland around the portico railing.

Or the red lanterns full of lights with our blue door nearby.

Or catching a glimpse of our still-to-be-decorated Christmas tree through the bay window on the side. Sidenote: I have hoped to repaint those white trim pieces that hang down like a sabre tooth tiger for months. Simply making those dangly bits the same color as the siding and leaving the trim around the window white will look so much better I think.

The wreaths ended up being an excellent deal, thanks to stacking a few sales, so this, my friends, is how you get eleven 24″ outdoor wreaths that would have been $88, for $53 instead. First of all, they had been marked down to $5.99 (from $7.99) at Michael’s, which meant I could not use any Michael’s coupons that I had (their coupons are typically for full-price merchandise only).

But knowing they match competitor coupons, I swiftly googled “JoAnn coupon” while standing in line on my iPhone and they were running a “20% off your whole purchase of holiday decor (including on-sale merchandise)” sale with a coupon that I could get right on my phone. So the sweet lady at the register honored the coupon, and that is how we got eleven 24″ outdoor wreaths for $4.81 a pop instead of $8.

She also said it was cool to use the coupon towards holiday ribbon, so for another $12 I grabbed three big spools of gold and returned home with everything we’d need to hang these suckers in every window. Or so I thought…

The upstairs windows were fairly plain, it simply took a little finagling with the storm window and the screen to get them out of the way so we could crack the window open sufficient (from the top) to slide the wreath out with the ribbon wrapped around it to hold it up. One pointer is to clutch that ribbon like it is a hundred dolla bill, because it is annoying to keep dropping wreaths out the window and having to run downstairs to get them.

Once I had said wreath out the window and was holding the end of the ribbon, John simply closed the window right on the ribbon (we could pulling it up if we hoped to raise it or let more ribbon hang out the window if we hoped to lower it). Locking the window held it fairly securely, but simply in case we also used a thumb tack stuck into the ribbon and the quite top of our wooden windowsill for good measure, since we’d seen that mentioned here (it only makes a compact pinhole at the top of the window where our blinds cover it anyway).

The downstairs windows were a distinct story (both literally and figuratively). Somehow their extra long storm window panes on top (these windows are taller than the ones upstairs ) did not allow for us to stick the wreaths out the top of the window unless we fully took out all of the storm windows, which defeats the purpose of them since it is cold out these days. So we opted to hang the wreaths from the outside of the house on a ladder for the lower level, instead of using the window to hold them in place.

We did not want the ribbon getting pinched or gathered around a plant hook screwed into the top of the window, because the ribbon for the upstairs wreaths looks pleasant and flat, so we devised these handy little “trapeze things” as we called them, to keep the downstairs ribbon flat like the upstairs stuff.

They were simply wooden dowels with two quite small holes drilled in each side and some wire strung through them to create a flat little plane for the ribbon to be wrapped around.

Then John could hang that trapeze hook over a plant hook that we had screwed into the side of the window, but the ribbon would still stay flat. To keep everything secure, he stapled the ribbon together to make a loop around the hanging trapeze thing while up on his ladder (that way I could stand back and make sure they were all the same height before he stapled).

See the two subtle staples in the picture above that are holding the ribbon? So far they’ve been up about 4 days without any breakage or ripping, so we think they should hopefully hold up for the season and we have high hopes of reusing them future years too. You know we will keep you posted if they all jump off the house or something though (and now I will go knock on some wood).

Next up was the garland around the portico. We simply swagged it a few ways to see what we liked, and eventually used a few cable ties to keep it all in place once we pinned down our go-to look. We tried going up the peak in the portico, going around each of the pillars, and at last ended up liking it this way the best. Something about the light already coming from the top of the portico (our little porch light) made the garland lights going up that high look like too much upper-action, so keeping them low felt more balanced. And we thought it was pleasant for them to drape down the steps like this.

Oh and I picked up these three strands of lighted garland from Joss & Main for $18 each I think. Not a bad deal, and they all can be plugged into each other to make one long strand, which is pleasant and convenient.

Then we broke out the candle lights for each window from our old house (we used to have three of them in the side windows since you saw the side of the house a lot from the street) and were so glad to have the right number for this house. Well, not sufficient for the garage, but the idea of going in and out of the garage to turn them on and off each night sounded annoying, so we opted not to add any more to our count, and simply stuck with 9 of them inside.

At last, out came the old red lanterns from Ikea a few years back, which we filled with lights (one strand per lantern) and simply connected them all to each other. Placing them on every other step ended up being our go-to spot for them (we tried them down on the walkway and on either side of the door, but this was the winning placement) and thankfully we had an outlet right on the porch for the garland and the strand of connected lantern string lights, so no blackouts were caused in the making of this holiday scene.

We certainly have seen fancier holiday lighting displays (there are some vivid ones in our neighborhood) and we have some fairly elaborate dreams of adding to ours over the years (like decorating that Chirstmas-tree-esque holly on the right corner of the house, and getting a big lighted wreath for the front door), but for now, we are fairly proud of our first attempt at a holiday display here in this house. One of our neighbors even stopped by to asked me all about the garland and where we got the red lanterns, so that was pleasant. I might have been a little too into the conversation, but what can I say, I loves me some holiday glow.

I worried it would be kind of ugly during the day without the magic of the lights, but I am glad to report that it is not too bad that way either. Sidenote numero dos: Oh how I wish I had pulled that weird doormat at the bottom of the stairs out of the way – I have been meaning to put it in the garage after we at last found a wider one for the front door, but somehow it ended up down there.

Are you folks decorating the outside of your house? Who goes all out and follows the roof-line with lights? What about those excellent draped trees that look like weeping willows but they are simply a mass-o-lights. Enjoy that so much.

Psst- To see how we decorated the outside of our house last year and the year before, click here and here.

Update: You can check out all of our go-to holiday decor finds here – many of which are under $15!