christmas decor ideas

Why Use Garland for Christmas Decor

Discover how Christmas Garland can transform your home for the holidays! Out are the days of just stringing one piece of garland across the fireplace mantel. Garland for Christmas is the magical ingredient to take your holiday decor to the next level. You will be blown away by the impact hanging garland on your archways or open doorways has on your Christmas home decor.

You can Make & Hang Garland for Christmas quickly and easily. This one piece of Christmas decor will turn your home into the most impressive setting you’ve ever dreamt of. This method of hanging garland for Christmas on your archways makes the most dramatic bang for your buck!

I will show you how to make the most full & luscious pine garland for Christmas out of 2 artificial garlands. Then, I’ll share how to hang it from your archways or open doorways. And finally, I will share how crazy affordable this lighted Christmas garland is with a full cost breakdown.

How to Make Artificial Christmas Garland with Lights

This Christmas garland is far more full and real-looking than any pre-made artificial garland I’ve seen on the shelf. To make this luscious Christmas garland I first started with 9′ Rochester Garland from Walmart. Then, I embellished it with Soft Garland. Thirdly, I added Sylvania PURE WHITE (not warm white) mini lights. These white LED lights are my favorite Christmas string lights of all time! They don’t have a yellow tone. I can’t help but smile when I see the whole house sparkling with Christmas lights!

To get the look- I wrapped the Rochester Pine with soft garland and then Pure White Lights. I used a whole strand of lights per 9′ garland and it is actually pretty bright! For a more serene feel at night, you could totally use half as many lights!

Since the Rochester Pine Garland I used is sold out at Walmart, I found some gorgeous pine garland on Amazon:

60″ Norfolk Pine Garland– Has great reviews with pictures from reviewers, but its on the pricey side.

9.8′ Norfolk Pine Garalnd– Budget friendly Pine Garland.

9′ Flocked Berkshire Spruce Garland– Has great reviews, also on the pricey side.

For Each Archway the Materials I used was:

2 9′ garlands for the small arches and 3 (with some cut off with wire cutters) for the large arch.
2 strings of lights for the small arches and 3 for the big one (but could have used half as many).
2 of the 50′ soft garland to wrap around all the Rochester garland.

Artificial Christmas garland has so many benefits over real garland! It is affordable. Artificial garland is easy to work with because there is a wire you can shape into place. And of course, artificial Christmas garland won’t wilt and can be hung year after year!

How to Hang Christmas Garland

After fumbling, with so many Command hooks and other nails that didn’t work (and introducing my kids to a new swear word…ooops!) I threw in the towel with the Command hooks and got 1 1/4″ cup hooks. I figured the tiny paint touch-up would be worth the ease of hanging the garland. Plus I already would have paint touch-ups from another staple type nail I tried that didn’t work! Moreover, the cup hooks were SO much easier and more sturdy! In conclusion, with these secure cup hooks I don’t have to hold my breath when I attached the garland to the hooks! Round of applause for that!

I put 5 hooks on the top of the first arch I did, but for the other arches I only used 3 cup hooks for the top of the arch and it was totally sufficient.

How Much does this Artificial Christmas Garland Cost?

The Total Cost for All 3 Archways:

7 of the 9′ Rochester garland at $6.88ea = $48.16
7 strands of the Pure white lights at $7.99ea = $55.93
2 spindles of the 50′ soft garland at $7.88ea = $15.76

For a Total of $119.85

Consider how many archways or doorways you want to decorate to figure your cost. For example, if you just have 1 archway it will be 1/3 the cost of the above! The best part is the sustainability of artificial Christmas garland. You pay for it once, and get to reuse it year after year!

This Christmas garland lights up our whole house with Christmas magic! The sight of our archways all lit up gives me the warm fuzzies every time I open the door!

2020 Update: Year 2 and the Christmas garland was hung in a flash!! Check out the whole process from start to finish in 3 minutes here: