How to Put Holiday Decorations in Your Yard and Not Destroy Your Grass

Christmas is coming to town, and the time for putting up holiday lights has rolled around again. 

With all the shopping, decorating, and planning that the holiday season requires, this time of year is stressful enough without having to worry about your grass being damaged too.

Every year, my family and I go all out with our Christmas display in Denton, Texas, which covers both the front and back of our Bermudagrass lawn.

If you’re hesitant to transform your yard into Candy Cane Lane because you’re worried about holiday decorations damaging your lawn, I’m here to shed light on how to put up holiday decorations in your yard without destroying your grass. 

How to Decorate Without Destroying Your Grass

My family has used Christmastime lawn decorations for years, and our semi-dormant Bermudagrass lawn has never suffered any major damage from our outdoor holiday display. But many grasses aren’t as resilient.

If you’re not careful, holiday decorations can damage your grass, especially if they are sitting on your lawn for several weeks. Luckily, there are simple steps to prevent this. 

Here are 11 ways to decorate your yard without destroying your grass:

1. Rake Up Leaves

First things first: Before you start decking the halls with boughs of holly, the yard needs to be cleared of all debris, including leaves, twigs, seed pods, and other tree litter. 

When I start decorating for the Christmas season in November, I always rake up the leaves and make sure the lawn gets a final mow first. 

Heavy leaf fall in my yard leaves behind too much foliage to mulch with a mower, so I have to rake first for a clear yard. Since I live in North Texas, typically the trees have lost most of their foliage by then.

Any soggy leaves, tree branches, or trash in your yard retains water, which can lead to mold or diseases forming on your grass. Leaves or dry twigs can also be a fire hazard, especially when next to hot Christmas lights.

• In Northern areas, the leaves may already have dropped for the year.
• Southern areas may still be waiting for the leaves to fall off the trees even well into November. In these areas, you may have to continue cleaning debris as you put out decorations.

Pro Tip: When you’re ready to put up all the tinsel and lights for your Christmas display, LawnStarter can help you with leaf removal or a yard cleanup so you can start with a clean slate.

See Related: How Much Does Leaf Removal Cost?

2. Move Holiday Decorations Around

Holiday decorations kept in one place for weeks can smother grass and deprive it of necessary air and sun.

To prevent this, move your decorations around the yard once a week to ensure they don’t sit in the same spot for a prolonged period. This is especially important for dormant lawns, which are more easily injured than they would be during their growing season.

Besides, neighbors passing by your house might appreciate you shaking up your Christmas arrangement every once in a while. 

It also helps to be timely with putting away the decorations. To reduce the risk of damaging your grass, take down holiday decorations shortly after Christmas or New Year’s.

Pro Tip: Deck the Halls and Yard: 2024 Holiday Decor Survey

3. Choose Lightweight Decorations

Anything large, heavy, or bulky exerts pressure on your grass. Heavy lawn decorations look neat, but they crush grass, and the weight can compact the soil on your property, requiring you to aerate your lawn next year. 

Worse, heavy or bulky holiday decorations deprive grass of sunlight and oxygen, both essential components that your grass needs to survive. In the worst-case scenario, starving your grass of needed sun and oxygen can kill patches in your lawn.

This damage will carry over into the spring, so when grass emerges from its dormant state, your lawn might look blotchy and unkempt. To keep your lawn pristine and in good shape, choose lightweight Christmas decorations:

• Blow molds are made of plastic. They don’t do much harm to my Bermudagrass lawn since blow molds are hollow in the center and relatively lightweight. In fact, when I take down the Christmas lights after the holiday, most of the time the grass is still green underneath, even in January.
• Fabric inflatables are fairly lightweight, though they still shade the grass, cutting it off from the sun and oxygen it needs.
• Outdoor Christmas trees. Their stands don’t cover up much grass, saving your grass from being smothered. I decorate my house with a lot of these trees, which adds depth to my festive display without putting much strain on the grass.
• Christmas-themed yard signs that you can easily stake into the ground. Christmas signs provide a lot of volume to your outdoor Christmas display, are low-effort to set up in your yard, and don’t smother grass like other decorations.
• Decorations with stands or bases that don’t cover up much grass. Many of the Christmas figurines sitting on my grass are made of fabric and wire, so they have a lightweight structure that minimizes any impact on our lawn.
• Christmas light projectors shine creative light patterns on your house. Just stick the light projector into the ground. Projectors don’t take up much space, leaving your grass largely untouched with plenty of exposure to the sun and air.

If there’s a heavy Christmas decoration that you simply can’t resist adding to your holiday setup, just make sure to move it around your yard every once in a while to give your grass a break. So long as it isn’t resting on a patch of grass for too long, your grass should be fine.

4. Find Other Places for Your Decorations

Instead of placing blow molds in the grass, find other places where your decorations can fit:

• On the front porch or deck
• By the doorway
• Among landscaping beds
• On your roof

My home’s holiday display has Christmas lights in every spot you can imagine. We keep several of the blow molds and other yard decorations in the flower beds, placing them in bare spots between the plants to prevent smothering the grass.

Pro Tip: If you already have a lawn ornament sitting in your front yard, swap it out with a Christmas decoration for the holidays. That way it won’t harm your existing grass.

5. Avoid Decorations That Sit on Grass

The easiest way to take care of your grass and still go all-out for the holidays is to choose lawn decorations that won’t interfere with your lawn.

If, even after reading these tips for protecting your grass, you still feel hesitant to put anything on your lawn, not to worry. There are additional ways you can decorate:

• Use LED light strands to wrap your trees and landscaping bushes. That way, the only thing interfering with your grass will be the extension cord.
• Add holiday flair to your house with a wreath to greet visitors at the front door. No display is complete without a Christmas wreath, and it’s an easy way to add to your outdoor display without damaging your grass.
• Top your house with a crown of lights around the edge of the roof. Only do this if you are comfortable with heights. I, myself, am terrified of heights and ladders – my dad outlines the whole roofline with lights, up to the highest point. If that’s too extreme for you, stick to hanging the lights on the gutters.
• Hang ornaments or glowing bulbs from your trees or bushes. I have fond childhood memories of hanging ornaments on the outdoor saplings with my siblings, a tradition we discontinued years ago once our trees grew too tall. But it’s a good way to decorate without harming the yard, and it can be fun for kids. Make sure every ornament is tightly secured; otherwise, a strong winter gust may blow them away.
• Use wall or window holiday decorations. Every year, my dad hangs up a couple of Christmas wreaths above our garage, and we have other wall decorations, like a “Joy” sign and a candy-cane wall decoration. 

6. Don’t Go Overboard

We know everyone is eager for the day when Santa Claus comes to deliver presents, but when it comes to putting up outdoor decorations, sometimes less is more. 

A tastefully arranged figurine or two can create a better Christmas display than stuffing as many decorations into a yard as possible, especially if the decorations are accented with a few strands of lights wrapped around the plants in your yard.

The fewer holiday decorations there are, the easier it will be for you to rearrange them every week to avoid damaging your lawn. 

Even in my yard, my family makes an effort to spread out decorations in both the front and back yard, rather than putting all our figurines in one spot. How much you can spread out your decorations depends on how many power sockets and extension cords you have. 

Pro Tip: Don’t put up more decorations than your power source can handle. Otherwise, you risk tripping your breaker, and then, no one will see your lights anyway.

7. Use Timers to Limit Foot Traffic

During the chilly weather that inevitably comes at Christmastime, you don’t want to have to dash outside at midnight to unplug your holiday lights by hand. This foot traffic wears a pathway in the grass and can lead to brown or bare patches, especially for turfgrass species that have low foot traffic tolerance.

That’s where a timer comes in. You can pre-program timers to automatically turn outdoor lights on and off at specified times. Everything in my holiday display is set on timers. It’s not just a yard-saver, but a time-saver as well. Without them, I would have to plug and unplug the lights at about 5 different locations every night – something my grass wouldn’t appreciate.

Additionally, electric lights heat up after a while, so leaving them on all night isn’t good for the grass. A timer reduces the amount of heat generated and also saves money on electricity bills.

Reducing foot traffic also has a safety benefit, since you want to avoid tripping over all those hidden extension cords that might bury themselves in the dormant grass. 

My Tip: Thanks to tall trees in my yard, Bermudagrass struggled to grow in the part of my front lawn where I set up the nativity scene, which received heavier foot traffic and lots of shade.

So for a full, lush lawn, my family installed Zoysiagrass sod to fill in the patches where Bermudagrass struggled to grow. Now, we have a full carpet of green in our front lawn.

8. Use LED Lights

LED lights are safer than traditional incandescent bulbs and greatly reduce fire risk since they burn cooler and don’t generate as much heat. Using LEDs protects your grass from getting overheated or scorched by heat exposure. This is especially helpful if your area suffers from wildfires or long dry spells.

For me, LED lights are a no-brainer and a staple in all my holiday decor: They are safer, but also longer-lasting and more energy-efficient. 

See Related: 10 Best Drought-Tolerant Grasses for Your Yard

9. Check for Frayed Cords

There’s nothing better than getting to roast chestnuts over an open fire for the Christmas season, but you definitely don’t want the fuel for that fire to be your lawn. Old or new, make sure to give all electric cords a good look before you connect them to holiday decorations in your yard.

My method is to always give each ball of lights a quick inspection and plug it in to make sure the lights are still working before I use it to decorate. Otherwise, it’s a bummer when you decorate a tree or bush only to find that your strand of lights is busted. 

Here are a few good rules to follow:

• After you pull all your decorations out of storage, check power cords for signs of fraying, damage, or wear. 
• Even brand new lights need a thorough inspection to make sure that they aren’t damaged. 
• If you store lights in the attic and you had an attic wildlife infestation earlier in the year, be doubly cautious when inspecting your Christmas lights. Rodents love to chew electrical cords and might have used Christmas boxes or cords as a snack. 
• All outdoor lights should be designed for outdoor use. Don’t leave indoor cords outside, since they aren’t built to withstand outdoor weather. My Christmas display goes up in November and stays up for about 2 months, so I always make sure to use outdoor-grade cords that can withstand rain, cold, and other harsh weather conditions.

Anything that looks damaged should be replaced or repaired immediately. 

10. Place Inflatables in a Dry Area

Be careful where you place your inflatables. Uninflated inflatables are prone to gathering water in the folds of their fabric, and excessive moisture around your grass leaves your lawn vulnerable to lawn pests or diseases. 

To prevent soggy grass, avoid placing Santa, a snowman, and other blown-up characters and decorations in a low area of your yard so the water doesn’t drain right to them. 

11. Don’t Use Candles

Few things are as enchanting as the warm glow of candlelight, but candles are a fire hazard, especially if there is dry grass or fabric inflatables nearby. I rely on LED lights for all my Christmas decorations.

A burnt lawn isn’t a very appealing Christmas present, so unless you want a black lawn for the holidays, don’t use candles in your decor. You can substitute battery-powered candles for real ones. Battery-powered candles are designed to mimic the natural flickering motion of a real candle.

Never leave a lit candle home alone, either indoors or outdoors – make sure you always blow out a candle (or candles) before you and your family head out. Sadly, homes have burned down due to unattended Christmas candles, and we don’t want your Christmas festivities to start with your house catching fire.

How Do I Protect Outdoor Holiday Decorations?

Winter weather can be rough on outdoor decorations, between freezing rains, heavy snowfall, and gusty winds. Here are some things you can do to protect outdoor decorations from the elements:

• Coat Christmas decorations with a waterproof sealant such as polyurethane or acrylic. This protects decorations from moisture damage and sun exposure. Apply a thin coating (otherwise it will look cloudy).
• Secure holiday decorations to the ground. When I decorate, 1-2 sturdy metal stakes are usually enough to prevent decorations from falling or blowing away. You can also use heavy bags of sand or gravel to weigh down stands or blow molds.
• Use zip ties to tie down light strands or loose parts of your holiday decorations. I hang Christmas lights along my wrought iron fence and use zip ties to hold the lights tightly in place so they aren’t swaying in the wind.
• Wrap cord connectors with electrical tape or wrap them in a plastic baggie to protect them from moisture. This seals off cord connectors and prevents moisture from getting inside. It also reduces fire risks by binding cords together and preventing them from pulling loose.
• Only use decorations and cords that are designed for outdoor use. Don’t use holiday decorations that are meant only for indoor use.
• A ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) prevents shocks and shortages in your power system. Some city regulations even require homeowners to use a ground-fault circuit interrupter for their holiday display. 
• Move your decorations inside to protect them if the weather forecast shows that harsh conditions such as hail or high-speed winds are about to hit your area.

FAQs

Protect Your Grass This Holiday Season

Celebrating the holidays doesn’t have to come at the expense of your lawn. There’s no place like home for the holidays, and that’s why we know how important it is to keep your home and yard in good shape. 

The above tips are some easy ways to prevent holiday decorations from causing lawn damage, so don’t let the stress of keeping your grass in good condition turn you into the Grinch. 

If you need lawn care services, we can connect you with a local pro to handle your lawn maintenance chores, including mowing, leaf removal, yard cleanups, and more. Some lawn care pros even put up and take down holiday decorations. 

Read More: 

• 6 Outdoor Solar Christmas Lights Ideas
• How to Select the Right Christmas Tree
• This Holiday, Replant a Live Christmas Tree
• 9 Ways to Dispose of Your Old Christmas Tree

Main Photo Credit: Danielle Gorski / LawnStarter