Christmas at home
The festive season is just around the corner and already we’re starting to hear Wham on the radio and see tinsel and lights going up in storefronts and living room windows.
Unfortunately, it looks like this year’s Christmas might once again be restricted due to a new strain of COVID that has recently been discovered.
Many of us have a particular love for all of the themed seasonal events and locations that open during the holidays but with social distancing seemingly on its way back, it looks like Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland and other activities like it may not be possible.
Despite this, there are ways to recreate the wonder of these magical locales at home, particularly if you have a garden of your own, and we’ve put together some cheap and easy decorative advice for realizing your own winter wonderland.
Lighting
The soft glow of candles on a church altar, the twinkle of tinsel on a Christmas tree, or a fireplace awash in twinkling orange. The way we use light is as synonymous and iconic a part of Christmas as turkey and stockings.
In your garden, there are ever more options for customizing your illumination with outdoor lighting now available in a huge array of colours, intensities, and patterns.
Start by building a base layer of warm yellow and orange light by stringing fairy lights down your fence line and among any small trees you might have.
Lamps, whether electric or candlelit, also lend a rustic, nostalgic feel to any space, particularly if you have large open areas for them to light up.
Finally, you might consider investing in a fire bowl or repurposing an old barrel or barbeque, you could even use this to roast your own chestnuts with the family once Christmas draws closer.
Ornaments
In a way, creating a Christmas-themed garden is much like dressing your Christmas tree, only on a larger scale. That being said, the additional space opens up possibilities for greater creativity and grandeur when searching for ornaments or characters to populate it.
Do you or your children have favorite Disney or fairytale characters? Perhaps there are statuettes that can help fill out the cast of your Christmas scene, consider dressing regular garden gnomes in tinsel or equipping them with their own festive hats.
There are also countless snowmen, elves, reindeer, and religious ornaments that can help make your garden feel more alive during this cold, dark season.
Wildlife
Although winter is the season of rest in mother nature, there are still a variety of critters and plants that not only survive the colder months but thrive in them as well.
Wreaths are one of the most enduring symbols of Christmas and make for an excellent foraging and crafts project that you can share with your family, picking holly and stringing it into a decorative donut is a great way to get back in touch with nature if you can brave the weather.
If not, there’s a wide range of animals – particularly birds – that you can entice into your garden over the winter. The European or ‘red breasted’ Robin is probably the most well known but there are also Goldfinches, Dunnocks, Bluetits, and many more.
Install a bird box on a high point of your fence or tree to draw these delightful creatures in and if you have nowhere appropriate, consider a small bird feeder that you can hang out for them.
This combination of light, decoration, and wildlife is sure to bring new vitality and warmth to your garden, even if you’re unable to visit your favorite Christmas events this season.
