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7 Best Outdoor Reindeer Decorations of 2023

Celebrate Christmas and the winter spirit with these festive outdoor reindeer decorations that evoke jingle bells, hooves flying over chimney-tops, and maybe a glowing red nose. When we see even the barest, white silhouette of a reindeer, we know it’s a symbol of Christmas. They’re playful, graceful, and a fair bit more elegant than the jolly old man in the red suit. This makes reindeer a versatile decoration for any holiday theme or atmosphere.

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Neat Santa's reindeer fact:

How reindeer became a traditional part of Christmas is a wild, twisting tale, going back centuries and combining ancient lore and a clever marketing campaign.

The first mention of Santa's flying reindeer in writing can be tracked down to 1821 in a poem by an anonymous author who was quoted as saying that the lore of flying reindeer came from his mother who was Sami, the indigenous people of northern Europe who have a long history of herding reindeer.

No number or names were given to the reindeer until 1823 when the famous poem Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore was published--but even after that the names kept evolving. The original printing of the story names two of Santa's crew as "Dunder and Blixem" which is Dutch for "thunder and lightning," making them the toughest sounding reindeer in the bunch, but today, through many reprints, we know them as Donner and Blitzen.

It would still take another century for this image of Santa and his reindeer to spread across the globe. What triggered it? Weirdly enough: Carl Lomen.

Lomen was an Alaskan businessman with investments in American reindeer herding. Hoping to increase national interest in reindeer, in 1926, Lomen and the folks at Macy's came up with a plan for Santa to ride through Macy's third Thanksgiving Day Parade pulled by reindeer and accompanied by Sami indigenous people in their traditional dress. (Ever wonder why Santa's elves have curled shoes? Google Sami traditional shoes.)

At the same time, Lomen sent fake letters to newspapers across the country supposedly written by children requesting that Santa and his reindeer visit their towns too. The rest, as they say, is history.