I have put up outdoor xmas lights around my yard. They look great and I plan on leaving them there year round. The question is how to get power to them. Right now I have run extension cords from an outdoor outlet to several different starting points for the light strings around the yard. But these extension cords are trip hazards and I wouldn't want to hit one with a snow shovel in winter. So, is there such a thing as a direct-burial extension cord? If so, can someone please provide a link?

If not, what is the best/easiest way to get a more permanent (buried) power run from the outdoor outlet to a couple different points across the yard where I plug in the light strings?

What I might do, is to create a pod with a small cement pad and plastic conduit which attaches to an outlet box and a large plastic cover which allows the cord to exit the outlet and be protected. You can find these at an electrical supply house.

Then run direct burial cable 18" deep to inside.

If we are just talking one 15 amp circuit, I might connect these outlets to a "pool" timer or other sort of timer.

It might be important to you to turn things on and off for your display, but be able to keep them on during the summer.

Lots of options: The simplest being bring the wires into the electrical panel and attach a pigtail to one breaker. Then multiple breakers.

Then more complicated solutions involving timers. Altronix: a leading manufacturer of electronics and high technology components makes a bare board timer with leap year correction, but that requires making your own panel.

You would want the outlets above the snow heigh for your area and it should go without saying that they need to be protected with a GFCI.

The max load you expect and the distances for each outlet and the numer of outlets should give us a better idea of what you could do.

I think going to the breaker box and turning on the outlets will get old after a while.

Do some research on pool timers and mechanical timers.

I should mention that the altronix timer is a 365 day timer, so you could just set it and forget it. No christmas season stuff required.

I don't want to go back to the breaker box. I want to go across my yard and be able to plug into an existing outdoor outlet (GFCI of course). This outlet is switched with an outdoor switch right by the patio door. So by turning on this switch as I walk out I will be able to control the xmas lights all around the yard. My question is about getting power from the outlet across the yard to where I will plug in the lights.

You could do exactly what I said, but terminate to one of these. PB20

Which is essentially a generator input connector. This one is rated for 20 A. There may be one for 15A if required.

So, all you'll have to do when xmas comes around is connect the outside outlets via a pigtail to the generator input connector and to your outlet.

-or-

You can put a waterproof switch right next to the outdoor outlet and just turn that to enable the lawn outlets.