Outdoor displays

Planning a front garden display

Start with one piece that is seen from the road, a reindeer or a lit silhouette at 60cm to 1m, and build round it. A path lined with stake lights leads the eye to the door; a net light on the hedge gives a background; an inflatable fills a lawn. Keep the colour temperature consistent: warm white reads as traditional, white and ice white as crisp, and mixing them side by side looks accidental. Most people get a better result from three pieces in one colour than ten in five.

The sections

Silhouettes and motifs are the 77 rope-light and wire-frame shapes, from a 1m nativity scene at £99 to a parachuting Santa with kicking legs. Light-up reindeer are 28 rattan, beaded and wire deer from 58cm to over a metre. Acrylic figures are 27 moulded animals and snowmen with LEDs inside, half of them battery powered. Inflatables are 13 self-inflating lit figures from 1.5m to 1.8m. Garden displays are the signs, pop-up figures and stake pieces.

Power outside

One hundred and twenty-eight pieces run from the mains via a low-voltage transformer, which has to live under cover or in a weatherproof box; the lead length on each product page tells you whether it reaches from a sheltered socket. Thirty-five run on batteries with a timer, which suits a piece at the end of the garden or on a balcony with no socket. The DriBox housings keep plugs and transformers dry.

Fixing in wind

Silhouettes come with stakes or hanging points; peg them, or tie them to a fence post with cable ties through the frame. Inflatables have tethers and stakes in the box and should be deflated in high wind. Rattan reindeer are light and need a stake through the base or a brick on the back feet.