Christmas is the season of lights, with celebrators filling their yards with colorful light displays. After the celebrations end, Christmas lights are often packed up in the attic or garage for use next year, which can be a frustrating mess of tangled wires and wobbling ladders. However, it is completely possible to create lasting Christmas light displays that can stay up year round and enhance your yard.

Wrap Tree Branches

Tree branches look beautiful wrapped in strands of Christmas lights, especially white or green ones. Whether you have palm trees, saplings, or mature trees, wrapping the branches with Christmas lights emphasize the graceful lines of the tree and add beauty to your yard.

In order to keep this look as elegant and classic as possible, avoid multicolored strands in traditional Christmas colors. Instead, stick with one color strands. If you don’t feel like climbing all over the trees or weighing down delicate boughs, wrap just a few branches for simple accents, or wrap some of the lights up the trunk instead! To ensure a beautiful display, considering purchasing some new lights from a source like Christmas Lights Etc that will stay beautiful even outside.

Accent Gazebos, Patios, Porches

Image via Flickr by Linden Tea

If you have a screened porch, gazebo, or other covering in your front or back yard, Christmas lights are a great way to add some gentle lighting to it while adding an elegant or unique touch. Running Christmas lights over the roof of a porch creates a neat cafe-vibe.

Don’t have a way to get the lights to stay? Run clothing line where you want the lines to hang, and then wrap the lights around it twice, which will save your wires from misjudged nails ruining the circuit. Stringing the lights around the archway of a gazebo creates an enticing doorway and highlights the curves of the structure. If your structure is covered in vines, wrap the lights in the greenery to create a beautiful effect.

Create Beautiful Spaces

Using hanging lights to partition areas in your yard can be like making an extra porch or patio on your lawn! You can string up lights from a clothes line hung on stakes, making them drop down to create a kind of light wall. Or, just run it along the top of posts for a more open-air feel. This is a great idea for parties or outside dinners, creating an elegant space out under the stars.

During the Christmas season, you can use these spaces for a Nativity scene or to hold holiday festivities. If you want to avoid putting stakes or posts in your yard, see if you can take advantage of preexisting structures, such as the branches of a tree. Otherwise, start the string of lights from the ledge of your porch or house if you want to create an open air bonus room.

Just because the holiday season is over doesn’t mean you have to pack in the Christmas lights. Create beautiful displays in your yard with your Christmas lights and enjoy them all year round.