In my opinion, putting up Christmas decorations is one of the high point of the whole year. I have always loved it since I was very little. Back then, my parents did not have a lot of money for decorating for the holidays. Christmas decorations were usually things we made ourselves. We would put up pine cone bird feeders, homemade Christmas ornaments, and things like that.  Even though the decorations were meager, we always had a fun time putting them up. It was a special occasion for the whole family to get together.

Nowadays, outdoor Christmas decorations are a much more elaborate phenomenon in my family. Our Christmas decor isn't simple anymore, that's for sure. The centerpiece of our decorative scheme is our inflatable holiday decorations. We've been gathering them one by one for years. The first inflatable holiday decoration we got was more of a toy. You see, it was a particularly warm winter, and it wasn't snowing enough to build a snowman. My children, naturally enough, we're pretty dissipated by this development, so I decided to get them an inflatable snowman. It wasn't really intended as an inflatable holiday decoration, but more as a way to help lift their spirits. Nonetheless, it was so popular and looked so good on the lawn the next year we decided to get more inflatable Christmas decorations.

Inflatable holiday decoration displays come in all shapes and sizes. That particular snowman was not very big, but some of the additions we have gotten since then have been downright gigantic. There is an 8 foot tall Santa Claus in front of our door, guarding our house in a way that is both jolly and sinister at the same time. One of my neighbors has even more impressive outdoor holiday decorations. He has a giant display of Santa Claus and his reindeer. The thing stretches across an entire lawn! Every single reindeer is there. The whole thing is kept inflated by a giant pump that hums all my love.

Nonetheless, even the humble inflated holiday decoration can really add a lot to your Christmas spirit. We actually have an inflatable holiday decoration of an adorable little reindeer right in front of our Christmas tree, staring up at it. Nearly every person who has come to visit us has commented on how adorable it is. Although it is cheap and compact, it still manages to make quite an impression.

Even during Christmas, we still are house proud and not only do we want to look good but we also want our decorations to keep up with the neighbors. This can be a hard task because so much time and money is spent on outdoor Christmas lighting and holiday decorations. I was surprised to find out that many of my neighbors start planning their lighted outdoor Christmas decorations months before Christmas time. The days are gone when house decorating was as simple as running a string of lights along the roof and making a snowman in the front yard. Nowadays, if you don't spend weeks decorating, it looks like you have put in almost no effort at all and don't care!

If you are short on time there are some great shortcuts to Christmas decorating. The best one, in my opinion, is using animated outdoor Christmas decorations. I first discovered them a few years ago when one of my friends was putting up his Christmas light display. I was surprised to see him covering his lawn with silhouettes made of stiff wire. When I asked him about it, he told me to wait and see. He was bursting with pride to show off the work that he had put in to the animated outdoor Christmas decorations, and wanted to show me the finished display instead of explaining it to me.

The display was so gorgeous that it was really worth the wait! The effect was absolutely stunning. The animated outdoor Christmas decoration was actually a moving animation of Santa Claus driving his reindeer. The reindeer would move across the lawn, Santa raising his whip to spur them into action as they leapt dramatically on. It was classic and high-tech at the same time. It was, in short, just what I was looking for in my Christmas decor.

Animated outdoor Christmas decorations come in many different styles. I prefer the look of animated wire, but some people like to go a lot further than that. I have a neighbor who actually has an electric powered carousel with reindeer moving around inside of it. It is not something that you can ride, of course, but it does make quite an impression. The whole thing flashes and glows with red and green lights and can even be programmed to play Christmas carols. Only your imagination can hold you back when it comes to designing animated outdoor Christmas decorations.