[the black pirate]

I must admit I like decorating for Christmas. Hanging the lights, decorating the tree, setting out some lawn displays. However, during Halloween everyone kept saying, "I can't wait to see what you do for Christmas"! Talk about setting the bar high. Has this happen to anyone? What do you do? Do you do a mad rush to take everything down after Halloween and start putting up your Christmas decorations?

 

[Muffy]

Well I would not exactly say I'm a "mad rush " kind of gal but since we opened the insdie of the house for halloween a big chunk of our halloweeniers the last couple of years asked us if we could open up the house for Xmas too.....and yes we do decorate as much for xmas as we do for halloween. We could not pull the open house night off last year cause we all had health issues here but we are talking about it this year & I was surpised how many of the parents asked about it on halloween night.

Muf

 

[Ogma]

We got a few people saying similar things on Halloween, but our reply was always the same... "THIS is our Christmas!" Short of a few lights outside (and a tree inside) we don't do too much in December.

 

[LT Scare]

I must admit I like decorating for Christmas. Hanging the lights, decorating the tree, setting out some lawn displays. However, during Halloween everyone kept saying, "I can't wait to see what you do for Christmas"! Talk about setting the bar high. Has this happen to anyone? What do you do? Do you do a mad rush to take everything down after Halloween and start putting up your Christmas decorations?

In most conversations of any significant length about our haunt, yes, I am asked if we go all out for Christmas the way we do for Halloween.

Initially I dismissed a large Christmas display, because far too many people do this and do it so very, very well that I couldn't match budgets and storage with them even without the Halloween adiction.

I finally guilted myself into cranking up the Christmas stuff a knotch. But I dove-tailed it a little bit into Halloween. The VERY sturdy, yet temporary 4x4 supports we use for our Halloween arch, and to anchor the entire haunt, are now left inplace when the haunt comes down. The day after Thanksgiving (yep the ugly things are left sticking up by themselves all November), we mount a facade that looks like two 12 foot candy canes, turned so that their "hooks" are touching, forming an arch at the entrance to our sidewalk leading to the house. A [wood] green banner with gold letters proclaims "Merry Christmas" attop the candy canes.

We also set up a "fence" of 3 foot, lighted candy canes around the yard, some airblowns and lights pulsing to music. All of this stores in minimal space and goes up and down very quickly - less than one day. Theme: not much, but looks like a lot. We're just too exhausted from Halloween to kill ourselves at Christmas.

BTW, we also have to setup my 88 year old parents house for both holidays. Busy, busy.

 

[haverghast asylum]

I'd say we do just as much for christmas, and halloween.

 

[littlespook]

I decorate way more for Halloween than Christmas.

 

[RRguy]

I don't do nearly as much decorating for Christmas as for Halloween. I can have my yard and porch Halloween decorations down the next day. I'm planning to continue to expand my decor in the coming years, but, at this point, I still can't see it taking me more than one day to take everything down. Christmas decorations usually include much more extensive lighting displays. All of those wires. I have been making most of my Halloween decorations to save money. This is harder to do for Christmas. Those wires.

 

[DaveintheGrave]

Oh yea, I got the same exact comment. I normally go all out for Christmas too, but I'm still so tired from Halloween I told my wife I'm just going to put out one green floodlight and one red floodlight and maybe a reindeer.

 

[boo who?]

We only put out some big red ribbons on the fence posts and mailbox and a few wreaths here and there. I DO wish that there was a way we could share our indoor Christmas tree. Every year, it is a themed beauty that IMO is much nicer than the ones I've seen in Christmas house tours.

 

[Scatterbrains]

Well the neighbors call me Clark Griswald, so that should give a clue as to how much I decorate for Christmas. Unfortunately I also buy too much at the after Christmas sales and a rough estimate is that I have 200 boxes of unopened lights that I haven't used yet...dern electric bills.

My big Christmas project is to lay some pallets on the roof (luckily I don't have a steep slope) then I mount 9 reindeer (can't forget Rudolph) and a sleigh that I got at Home Depot a few years ago to the pallets. I Then have a small inflatable Santa that fits the scale of the sleigh and run red rope lights from the sleigh to all the reindeer as reigns. I have been using white motion lights to simulate a runway on the roof, but after Christmas last year I bought a couple of those "Santa Stop Here" Landing lights so it'll be even cooler this year.

The weather is pretty nice here right now, so I'm hoping to get some of the lights up this coming weekend...but I won't turn em on until after Thanksgiving

 

[Sipesh]

Lights and two of those white wire, lit, animated reindeer. That's about it. And the obligatory tree inside. Never had the neighbors ask 'bout it, though... By the time it's season to put out the Christmas stuff, though, it's usually insanely cold as far as I'm concerned. At that point, I prefer to climb into bed and hibernate until spring. ...I may be jokin'...

 

[theedwin]

I heard that question alot!

(If your Halloween display is this good, I can't wait to see your Christmas display)

I wasn't even going to do a Halloween display this year, but when Goodwill had all this GREAT stuff, I just had to do it. ( also I found this amazing forum.... so I went for it)

My original intention this year was to skip Halloween and only focus on Christmas, but that didn't happen. Very glad I didn't skip Halloween as it taught me alot when it came time to decorate for Christmas. Styrofoam, motors, paint, wiring, thrift store shopping skills..... etc etc.

One thing I have learned is that Halloween is MUCH more complicated than Christmas. With that in mind, I of course will be planning my next Halloween display come January 1st!

E

P.S. As far as my Christmas display is going..... Really well so far!

 

[Scatterbrains]

One thing I have learned is that Halloween is MUCH more complicated than Christmas. With that in mind, I of course will be planning my next Halloween display come January 1st!

Why wait so long...just searching this site I've found ideas that have me planning next year's site already....

as I was walking through Lowes last night, I found myself wondering how some of the animated Christmas decor would look if I threw a cape and a mask on it...

 

[CraigInPA]

I'm in that "rest period" between taking down Halloween and putting up Christmas. By "rest", I mean that I've moved the cars out of the garage and began to test the 20K+ lights on the wreaths, trees, etc... that we put out each year. I'm 2/3rds done, and will be putting up the display on Saturday, assuming it's not raining, snowing, or have high winds like last weekend.

Craig

 

[IshWitch]

I must admit I like decorating for Christmas. Hanging the lights, decorating the tree, setting out some lawn displays. However, during Halloween everyone kept saying, "I can't wait to see what you do for Christmas"! Talk about setting the bar high. Has this happen to anyone? What do you do? Do you do a mad rush to take everything down after Halloween and start putting up your Christmas decorations?

I've had that on occasion but I get a lot, and I mean a LOT, of people who look surprised when I tell them we do as much for Christmas. And we do do a lot at Christmas! For a while we had a spinning tree right in the front window (prelit kind and now the bottom tier won't light! can't find the cause either). So we are presently IN the mad rush to dehalloween, taking bins to the storage unit and pulling out Christmas ones to bring back. The place is a disaster!

Add into that we are going on vacation 5-16 so want the inside done before then and then will finish off the outside (had a spiral tree stolen last year so only doing lights) until we get back.

 

[IshWitch]

My big Christmas project is to lay some pallets on the roof (luckily I don't have a steep slope) then I mount 9 reindeer (can't forget Rudolph) and a sleigh that I got at Home Depot a few years ago to the pallets. I Then have a small inflatable Santa that fits the scale of the sleigh and run red rope lights from the sleigh to all the reindeer as reigns. I have been using white motion lights to simulate a runway on the roof, but after Christmas last year I bought a couple of those "Santa Stop Here" Landing lights so it'll be even cooler this year.

I wanted to do a Santa and sleigh up on the roof as well, the pallets idea is brilliant!
Thank you so much for that! We have a chimney for our fireplace but unfortunately you can't see it from the front of the house. But the slope isn't too steep.
Do you cover the pallets?
What are your decorations, wire reindeer and sleigh or blowmold?
If wire do they have the moving heads?

I want to put a fogger up there for Christmas Eve and Day so that it follows the song!

 

[Tish]

We got that question a lot. I've been telling people that we don't do much for Christmas. We usually have a few lights up outside, a wreath and a tree inside for Christmas. I would like to do a big Christmas display buy with what we spend at Halloween it makes it difficult to do Christmas too. Now that there are two incomes in the house though (Brian moved in a year ago) we might start adding more. I'm off to Costco soon to check out what they've got in the way of lighting.

 

[Scatterbrains]

I wanted to do a Santa and sleigh up on the roof as well, the pallets idea is brilliant!
Thank you so much for that! We have a chimney for our fireplace but unfortunately you can't see it from the front of the house. But the slope isn't too steep.
Do you cover the pallets?
What are your decorations, wire reindeer and sleigh or blowmold?
If wire do they have the moving heads?

I want to put a fogger up there for Christmas Eve and Day so that it follows the song!

Our Chimney is also out of sight. I like the pallets because I don't have to nail anything into the roof. And the weight of the pallets agaisnt the shingles gives it enough traction not to slip. The pallets haven't slid in the 4 years I've been doing this, but just to be sure, I set sandbags on the backside of the roof at the top of the "turtle" vents and run rope around them and through the pallets to counterbalance everything.

The sleigh and reindeer (with moving heads) are wire...this is the best way to go simply because there's nothing really for the wind to get ahold of. The legs on the wire reindeer have three wires going down and are tied together at the bottom, so I slide a 4" bracket over the "hoof" and screw it down for every leg...they don't move.

I don't cover the pallets...mother nature usually puts enough snow up there to cover them. Although I keep thinking of painting the pallets the same color as the shingles so they blend in. I don't think I would want to cover them because I wouldn't want the wind to lift them up.

I got 2 sets of these lights at the after Christmas sales and will mount them with brckets to the sides of the pallets

the lights come 16 to a box are about 2 ft tall and come with a motion programmer, so it should be a pretty cool effect

 

[halinar]

I had a neighbor out talking smack about how he was going to take me down for Christmas.... My responce was "you win!" since I don't do Christmas.

At least I wasn't putting up Halloween stuff in early september like people putting up Christmas decorations in early November.

 

[IshWitch]

Wow, I just love the idea of Santa and the Reindeer on the roof but could never figure out how to go about it. No way would we drill into the roof!
I can't thank you enough for the pallet tip!
Now to find the right sleigh and reindeer AND Santa!
Oh yeah, and mock up a tank for my fogger so that I don't have to worry about it going dry.
This will probably end up being a "next year" set up, to get all the stuff organized, but that would be okay 'cuz I could snag the props on clearance!