Outdoor Decorations from Family Christmas Online^TM

Outdoor Decorations tend to be set up for people driving by to see. As a rule, they are large, and attention to detail is not critical. When I was young (in the 1950s and 1960s), most people who decorated outside put lights along their rain gutters and, occasionally on a tree in the front yard. Painted plywood or plastic nativities and Santas were also common, as were plastic choir boys. Today we have a plethora of options, including artificial trees, lighted wire sculptures, and blow-up figurines.

Our first priority, though, will be to document home-made or historical examples, while they are available. As an example, the Popular Mechanics "Project-A-Plan" decorating ideas affected thousands of neighborhoods in the 1960s, yet today they are all but forgotten. Folk art Santa displays are another area of interest. We are just starting some of these collections, but we know they can grow quickly if people get excited about them.

If you have any old photographs of the ways your parents or grandparents used to decorate their front yards or front doors, please send them our way with a description. If you mail them to us, we will be sure to return the photos. For e-mail or U.S. mail information, please see our contact page.

In the meantime, we are accumulating additional material to populate this section, but sorting it all out is slow going. Please check back every so often for additions, and remember to keep an eye out for family memories you can send our way. We man this site all year long (in fact, it's March 12 as I type this), so don't feel funny about contacting us any time.

At the moment, we have the following articles about outdoor decorations:

Folk Art Outside Santa Displays - Home-made creations, all unique in some way, that celebrate the big fellow's appearance.

Popular MechanicsTM Christmas 'Project-a-Plans' - See how Popular MechanicsTM designers 'raised the bar' for home-made front yard Christmas decorations in the 1960s, and how those projects live on.

"Doc" Johnson's Flying Santa At a reader request, we have put together a sort of pattern to help him build his own version of the Santa-in-Airplane that was a popular hand-made decoration from Smethport Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 1960s.

For more examples of "Doc" Johnson's splendid mid-century "yard art," check out our article about the store he ran and keep scrolling down for more photos.

And contact us with any questions or suggestions you have in the meantime.

Paul and Shelia Race

www.familychristmasonline.com