Monica Wants It: Christmas Lights #KmartHoliday {Outdoor Décor}

Confession: Putting up outdoor décor such as lights scares me. Why? Well, simply put, it involves me getting on a ladder (and by me, I mean my husband) and putting stuff on the roof all while trying not to fall and kill myself. Or break a leg.

The drama, y’all. Oh my gosh.

And I am ~~cheap~~ frugal and do NOT want emergency room bills. No thank you.

But, with all that being said, there is something so beautiful about a house all lit-up at Christmastime. I remember when Daniel and I first started dating I made him drive around the fancy neighborhoods in San Antonio, Texas so we could gawk at all the beautiful lights. It was my favorite thing to do during the holidays growing up. My mom and I would grab a coffee or cappuccino from Valero (french vanilla for me!), drive around and ooh and aah and it’d be a lovely way to spend an evening. Bliss.

Now, I have a house of my own, and we finally bought some outdoor Christmas décor at our local Kmart. I don’t know if my amateur attempts will result in people wanting to drive by my house to gawk over it, but you know what, I’m decorating for me (and you lovely folks). Kmart had a dismal selection when we went shopping last weekend (we went the morning after Black Friday and they were almost 80% wiped out of outdoor décor…), and it was hard to make our choices since the only stuff that was left was just regular outdoor lights. The deer were out of stock, the LED Mickey path lights were out of stock. So, we focused on choosing from what they had in stock. Warm white or bright white? LED, solar or regular? Inflatables or no inflatables? <--- Kidding. Inflatables are never an option. No offense to those of you who have them.

Here’s what we ended up buying…

Spiral trees!!

These are not as easy to put up as they seem, but I did manage to get it up by myself! It doesn’t look remotely correct does it…I’ll need to work on that bottom part some more. Then it started pouring rain again, so I need to wait to put up the other 2 we bought.

6-foot spiral tree via Kmart

Then, we wanted some solar lights for our trees in the front yard that aren’t near a power source/electrical outlet. Now, these sound great in concept (and it is cool), BUT the bulbs are WAY smaller than I would have thought. Think about the size of an eraser. I should have opened the box to check them out, but I did not. However, they will still be a great, easy way to light some branches. And? They are super bright! We snagged 2 of these in white (all I could find was blue or red on Kmart.com)

Solar Light Set (shown in blue) via Kmart

And finally, we wanted just some plain white lights to place on our roof/shingles OR for the trees in our yard that are near a power source. Unfortunately, they were out of the cool white LED lights, so we opted for the warm white shown below. I assure you they do not look yellow when lit up in person. They look very warm and sparkly while the cool white is just a very bright, white light with a blue tint to it. We bought 2 reels of the warm white lights.

200 Lights on a Reel (shown in warm white) via Kmart

And here they are on our tree in front of the house:

Christmas lights always scared me off because of how expensive they could be for LED lights (which I love because they’re energy star compliant and BRIGHT), but Kmart had such great prices that we were able to get all of the stuff in this post for under $100 (ok, it was $99.99). Best of all? They didn’t break the bank nor will they raise our electricity bills so much that we hope Santa pays the bill as our Christmas present. (Though Santa can pay any bill of mine at ANYTIME). Kmart had so much beautiful indoor décor as well, but I’ve already maxed out my shopping budget on indoor décor at the moment. Bottom line? I feel we got a lot for our money, it’s decor we can use for years to come and they’re going to be energy friendly (the LED ones).

Unfortunately, mother nature has made her presence and domination known this whole month. We’ve had super crazy winds and super crazy rain + daylight savings time working against us and a very moist/slick ground, so we’re hoping and praying she’ll give us a reprieve and let us put up the rest of the decor before Christmas.

I guess as long as we don’t end up with this, we’ll be ok.