Whether you call it Southwestern chic or just plain cowboy style, cowboy Christmas decorations are both fun and festive!
Cowboy Christmas Decorations for a Festive Holiday
If you're feeling the cowboy call this Christmas, you're in luck! There are plenty of fun and inexpensive ways you can decorate for the holidays in a Western theme.
Decorations You May Already Have
You may already have some great cowboy-style decorations around your house and not even know it.
Try using cowboy boots instead of Christmas stockings. Not only will they make great decorations in front of the fireplace on Christmas Eve, but they stand up on their own and you won't have to worry about where to hang them.
Some houseplants work perfectly into a cowboy Christmas theme. The Christmas Cactus is a natural choice. Its bright flowers and dark green foliage will make any room in your house feel festive and friendly. Other cacti can be great fun to decorate with, too. If you have a cactus or two around the house, they can be arranged with ornaments to create a lovely Christmas centerpiece.
Decorations You Can Buy
Cowboy-themed Christmas decorations are easy to find at party supply stores and through mail order. Strings of lights that look like cacti, horses, cows, and chili peppers can be found at places like North Pole West. You can use these to decorate windows, doorways, large cacti or even a traditional Christmas tree.
Decorations You Can Make
Making Southwestern Christmas decorations can be great fun too. Instead of evergreens and holly berries, try making a corn husk garland decorated with bright red dried chili peppers.
A great wreath idea is to use a sombrero as a base and decorate the brim with dried chili peppers. For a really intriguing wreath, use paper mache to create a wreath-shaped piñata. Fill your piñata wreath with peppermints and you'll have some southwestern fun for after the Christmas holiday. Most craft stores have inexpensive wreath forms that can be used to create lovely handmade wreaths. Try covering a round form in corn husks and adding either bunches or single dried chili peppers for color.
Also create a great wreath using a wire form trimmed in bandanas:
Bandana Wreath Instructions
You will need:
- 1 12" Circular Wire Ring. A wire coat hanger works great for this.
- 12 or more Green Bandanas (or any color you prefer)
- Florist's Wire
- Scissors
Instructions:
Cut bandanas into one-inch rectangular strips. Cut each strip into two shorter strips. Tie each strip on the metal ring, pushing the knots close together. Continue until you've covered the entire wreath.
When you've finished knotting the bandana strips around the wreath form, add a bunch of dried chili peppers with florist's wire instead of the traditional red bow. Also try dried flowers and sage as accessories.
Ornaments
Other great cowboy Christmas decorations can be made from hardening dough or clay, cookies or even wood. Some simple shapes that make great ornaments are stars, salamanders, coyote profiles, and cowboy boots.
Cookie cutters in the shapes of stars, salamanders, coyotes, dogs and boots can easily be found at any baking supply store and most craft stores that have cookie or candy sections. Creating Christmas cookies out of these shapes is a great idea. Just be sure to have plenty of colored frosting, festive sprinkles and colored sugar on hand to decorate them. Use silver nonpareils to decorate stars, brightly-colored sugar to decorate salamanders and different shades of chocolate frosting and chocolate chips to make decorating coyotes and boots tasty fun.
The possibilities really are endless when decorating for a cowboy Christmas. No matter how far you plan to go with your decorations just let your imagination be your guide and make it a fun, festive holiday.
Other Helpful Articles
Check out these other LoveToKnow craft articles to help you create great cowboy Christmas decorations:
- Christmas Tree Skirt Patterns
- Easy Christmas Crafts
- Free Woodworking Patterns
