Along with the Christmas decorations, a Merry Christmas welcome mat was placed at the main entry of the tent.
"You've got to make Christmas special," Mrs McNally said.
"It's such a short window in your children's lives. Our youngest is seven and we are treasuring those last years where Christmas is particularly special."
Christmas decorations also light up the inside of the tent, including a small Christmas tree with Christmas crackers placed underneath.
The family also decorated bottles of lemonade and beer to create Christmas "reinbeers".
"It's only $2 from the $2 Shop for those bits and pieces, and a bit of imagination," Mrs McNally said.
The idea behind tinselling the tent cables came from frustration at tripping over them at night, Mrs McNally said.
"So I thought I'd wrap some tinsel around them, it's worked out quite nice."
The tinsel joins other decorations at the McNally tent on the ocean side of the camping ground.
The McNallys have been coming to Mount Maunganui for the holidays for 13 years and are keen to return for Christmas next year.
Steady rain fell for most of yesterday morning, with 4.4mm falling at 10am. MetService predicts the weather will be cloudy today before rain returns.