Country Living editors select each product featured. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Why Trust Us?
35 Outdoor Christmas Decor Ideas for the Most Festive Curb Appeal
Deck your exterior with gorgeous garlands, wreaths, planters, and so much more.
Is there anything better than driving around during the Christmas season and seeing homes decked out with lights and greenery? Talk about all the festive feels! To help inspire your home this year, we rounded up 35 of our most beautiful outdoor Christmas decor ideas.
Whether you are looking for large-scale decorations to deck out the entire house or just a simple DIY for a new front door wreath, we’ve got plenty of ideas for you below. You’ll find options for everything from front door garlands and planters to porch trees (who ever said twinkly Christmas trees were only for indoor spaces?) and everything in between. Scroll on down and be prepared that these holiday houses might have you wanting to decorate immediately!
For more ideas on decorating your outdoor spaces for the holidays:
Don’t Forget the Outbuildings
When you’re decking your house for the holidays, don’t forget to spread the merry to garden shed, chicken coop (like pictured here), or other small buildings outside your home like a garage or play house. Treat it like a smaller version of your main house by draping garland around the door frame and hanging a simple wreath in the middle of the door.
RELATED: These 5 Christmas Decorating Trends Will Be EVERYWHERE in 2025
Mix in Gingham Ribbon
Solid red ribbon is a tried-and-true complement to holiday greenery, but to add a little extra nostalgic charm this year, try a red gingham ribbon instead to hang your evergreen wreaths on doors like you see on this historic New York home (with bluetick-coonhound mix Henry posing out front!). You can add similar ribbon-hung wreaths to windows, too.
RELATED: The Best Christmas Porch Decorations to Welcome Your Holiday Guests
Hang a Pinecone Wreath
Evergreen wreaths are a classic choice, but consider switching things up this year and making a pinecone wreath for your door instead. Bonus: This “snowy” door hanger lasts all winter long! To make, secure an array of pinecones of different sizes and shapes to a round wreath base, then embellish with aerosol snow spray.
RELATED: 33 Easy Pine Cone Crafts to Spruce up Your Home This Holiday Season
Add Lights Near Your Front Door
The cozy glow of white lights isn’t just for your Christmas tree outdoors. Nestle them on trees that flank your front door like you see at this rustic log cabin, or drape them in your greenery or on your wreath.
RELATED: 50+ More Beautiful Christmas Wreath Ideas to Embellish Your Front Door
Dress Up Your Garland with Satin
Elevate your garland this season by embellishing it with satin bows. Here, homeowner Stellina Condello uses varying shades of green satin bows and streaming ribbons to create a dressy look for her garland over doorframes outside and inside her Victorian cottage in Canada’s Prince Edward County. It all feels like a scene straight out of Little Women.
Dress Your Windows
Homeowner Landon McAfee drapes his cottage’s front door (painted a holiday-ready green!) with garland of a mix of Leyland Cypress and white pine. As a finishing touch, all of the window ledges get a holiday spruce-up with a layer of greenery clippings.
RELATED: 45+ Gorgeous Christmas Garland Decorating Ideas for Dressing Your Home Up
Adorn Your Statues
As an alternative to a traditional planter, consider placing wreaths around statues that flank the front door. Here, dog statues look extra festive at a Mississippi hunting lodge designed by Richard Keith Langham.
Set up a Seating Nook
At Alyson Morgan’s Wisconsin farmhouse a wreath made with foraged branches and tendrils of dried vines and botanicals takes center stage above a wooden bench loaded up with pillows. An unadorned pine tree in a crock ups the seasonal charm.
RELATED: 20+ Easy Ideas for Beautiful Outdoor Christmas Planters
Add Color With a Charlie Brown Tree
While your garlands and wreaths may be perfect and lush, there’s nothing more charming than a “less-than-perfect” fir tree weighted down with ornaments. A galvanized bucket provides a humble, no-fuss container.
Wrap Porch Columns With Garlands
On this upstate New York farmhouse, all the porch columns are wrapped with Fraser fir garlands—a perfect pairing with evergreen wreaths and festive red bows.
Hang an Arrangement
There’s no rule that your front door “wreath” has to be round. Choose your favorite outdoor-friendly vessel, like this wicker cone, and fill with an arrangement of evergreen and berry-filled branches. Finish with a festive bow.
Put a Tree on Your Porch
“I love the idea of having an outdoor tree, and this is a perfect way to do it,” says textile designer Heather Taylor of the 10-footer on the screened-in porch of her family’s California cabin, where—yes, even during the winter—they bundle up and gather to enjoy time together.
DIY a Tobacco Basket Wreath
A rustic tobacco basket makes for the easiest DIY wreath! Just add floral wire to fasten greenery, plus a few pine cones, some bright berries, and maybe a gingham ribbon to finish it all off.
Hang Wreaths With Ribbon
Kaley Cutting’s Connecticut farmhouse makes a merry first impression thanks to wreaths hung at each window with layered ticking-stripe ribbons.
Mix Your Greens
For a garland with lots of interesting texture, choose one made with a mix of types of greenery, such as pine, cedar, boxwood, or even, like here, olive leaves. Complement the simple, natural look with wood and terra-cotta planters holding a variety of evergreen shrubs.
Decorate for the Entire Winter Season
As if fur-embellished ice skates weren’t wintery or glamorous enough! In this innovative DIY, they’re filled with sprigs of evergreens and finished off with a fluffy pom-pom for a unique “wreath” that will have all your holiday guests buzzing. A few silver jingle bells or miniature ornaments make things even more festive.
Go All Out
If you fall in the “more is more” holiday decorating philosophy, then go for it! This Christmas-loving homeowner went wild with a small tree, wreath, evergreen arrangements in planters, colorful packages, a vintage ski poster, and whimsical flag bunting up above.
RELATED: The Best Small Christmas Tree Ideas With Big Holiday Spirit
Stagger Red & Green Lanterns
Now, here’s a home that incorporates the colors of Christmas in a seamless, beautiful way that doesn’t interrupt their existing decor scheme. These Tennessee homeowners incorporated the merry hues using a swath of cedar branches tied together with red ribbon, a small tree, and other color-coordinated decorations.
Lean a Vintage Sled
A vintage wooden sled or two propped by the door brings a seasonal spirit that can stay all winter long. For extra embellishment add a large bow.
RELATED: 25+ Vintage Christmas Decorations That Will Never Go Out of Style
Swoop Your Garland
Rather than wrapping your porch posts, let the garlands hang down for a more casual farmhouse-style look. It also lets a lot more of that pretty green to show—and pop against a wintery white setting.
A writer and editor with 20 years of experience in the lifestyle and travel realms, Leigh Crandall has been a contributing editor to Country Living since 2020. She regularly writes about small businesses with big ideas, U.S. destinations worth a road trip, holidays, hobbies, and more rural pursuits. She is also a children's book author and co-founder of Cowbell, a creative studio inspired by farming and heritage. When she’s not working, you’ll find her curled up with a cozy mystery on her front porch or exploring the outdoors with her family.
51 On-Trend Gifts for Even the Pickiest Teens
How to Get Your Amaryllis to Bloom Again Next Year
The Meaning of a Bird's Nest Christmas Ornament
Vintage Christmas Eve Pics to Make You Nostalgic
