Front door - complete with gold macaroni wreath.

As for the planters - one on a pedestal by the front door, one on the front steps, and one down at the end of the walk by the driveway.

"gold macaroni" misread as "gold magnolia" but gold macaroni is much more charming and implies there are smaller elves contributing to the Christmas decorations. Do they have a hand in the planters? If not, try not to be insulted by my question. There's more than a touch of whimsy in them and I think playfulness in adults is good for the soul.

My decorating isn't finished yet. When I leave each morning I look at the door and say "what does it still need? Greens, red bulbs? Gold?"

Idabean

Yes - a small elf in the house.

Somehow in my editing I deleted my verbage giving full credit to my 7 year old. She sticks the greens in the planters and chooses the decorations. Hence the addition of light up reindeer in a candy cane pen in the front yard.

Pixie Lou -

The gold macaroni wreath made me smile. We still make sure to put a gold macaroni ornament on the tree each year that my sister made when she was 4 (and she is just over the half century mark now.) Your daughter has her own style with flair - something not always found in kids.

Here are my buckets. I wanted some height after the last several years' deep snows completely burying my evergreens for most of the winter, and was inspired by Deborah Silver, a blogger who does landscape design and has a garden shop. I used some pagoda dogwoods that I had heeled into the veggie garden too many years ago for them to still be transplantable without a tree spade, so were cut down this fall. I think I need to add a few more ornaments still for them to look really filled. The rest of the ingredients come from my yard (white pine, spruce, red maple) and my inlaws' holly hedge.

The buckets by the end of the drive:

The bucket between the two main doors:

Here is a link that might be useful: Deborah Silver's December 2010 shop decorations

nhbabs - I love your planters. They look so "grown up" compared to mine!

Pixie Lou -

Thanks! Mine need to be big, bright, and full since they mostly get viewed by folks commuting down my road at 50 mph.

bumping this up....I am sure the warm weather hasn't made all of us procrastinate on our creations. Please post your photos!
idabean

Nice planters, everyone! I never seem to get around to this, and the warm weather has me still doing garden chores and displaying my really cool kale on the front steps....Just not in a holiday frame of mind yet!

Dee

The red bows and christmas bulbs on my planters have been swapped out for blue bows and white pointsettas - to go with more of the January/Snowman theme.

My planters are now all decked out for Valentines Day.

My 7 year old loves doing this and is already planning on the transition to Easter. I keep telling her the planters disappear after Valentines Day and we wait for pansies. She tells me our front door will look ugly if we don't have decorated planters out there. Beauty is in the eye of the decorator!

Your daughter want to come decorate at my house? I've still got the same stuff in my buckets (and my Christmas tree is finally coming down this weekend; it didn't go up until the relatives came on Christmas eve . . . )