Christmas decorations have sparked a dino-mite debate in our office this week – thanks to the volume of inflatable Jurassic creatures cropping up all over city. And it’s likely to get even crazier this weekend after National Tree Dressing Day, when more people drag their deccies out of the loft. But is your home tinsel-tastic or decorated demurely? Here, Sarah Newton and Simon Burch debate whether less really is more at Christmas.
Nothing says Christmas like a giant inflatable dinosaur wearing a Santa hat, right? Wrong. Christmas decorations should evoke nostalgia and timeless beauty, not look like they’ve escaped from a children’s party in Poundland. But we’ve reached that time of year when taste packs a bag and takes a holiday, writes Sarah Newton.
It’s not just the six-foot T-Rex’s waving candy canes that make me weep, I’ve no time for the tinsel travesties that transform the UK into a glittering museum of questionable taste either. These relics of Christmas past, predominantly from the 1970s and 80s, should be left in the loft – permanently.
I am a child of these eras and no longer wear ra-ra skirts, deely boppers and pedal pushers so why would I decorate my home with paper chains, concertina folded foil lanterns, macaroni garlands or aluminium Christmas trees? These retro abominations need to be banned faster than a mince pie at a weight loss retreat and they are no more ironic than the lyrics of an Alanis Morissette song.
I admit that when it comes to Christmas decorations I might be a bit of a snob. I might have been that parent that completely re-did the tree after the children were in bed – after all, who can tolerate a totally bare tree with every bauble in Britain decorating the same branch?
I may also be guilty of having two trees – a nice one in the living room with the colour coordinated decorations that were carefully curated from Bennetts over several the years, and a second more ‘family-friendly’ spruce in the conservatory.
This tree is home to the ornamental travesties that my children made in primary school from pipe cleaners, stick-on googly eyes and a slightly bald piece of tinsel. No, I wouldn’t part with them and yes, they make me feel sentimental about the days when everyone believed in Father Christmas. But would I have asked them to position their creations a little bit nearer to the back ‘to keep them safe’? Hell yes!
I know Christmas is for the children and of course it should be a magical time, steeped in stories of Santa, reindeer and elves. But nowhere in this canon does a prehistoric creature donning a woolly jumper make an appearance.
For me Christmas decorations should involve twinkling white lights that glitter like frost on a cobbled Victorian street, natural greenery like holly, eucalyptus and mistletoe, a cohesive colour scheme, candles and crystal baubles that dance in the light.
These deccies don’t scream for attention, they just enhance the overall ambience. Because a chic Christmas display is like a well-brewed cuppa – simple, comforting and universally appreciated. A six-foot Stegosaurus? A builder’s brew with five sugars – loud unnecessary and offensive.
So, if the urge to display an inflatable dinosaur becomes too much, remember this: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Merry Christmas everyone – and keep it classy.
I blame social media, writes Simon Burch.
Because back in the days when what happened at home stayed at home, you were free to decorate your house however you liked and so, if you were like our family, you knocked yourself out with tinsel, hanging foil angels, paper chains and all the other tat that grabbed you by the lapels and screamed “It’s Christmas” Noddy Holder-style into your face.
But once people went online to share their lives and show off their beautiful homes, inevitably they had to reflect the orthodoxy in order to fit in.
So Christmas had to follow suit: in tune with the times, it had to be tasteful, on trend, and aspirational.
To be aspirational is to be distinctive, but in a classy way, which means using accessories carefully so that they merely hint at a theme, rather than announce it through a foghorn.
A five-foot tasselled tinsel gold garland saying “Happy Christmas” Blu-Tacked on your living room wall is, apparently, not very aspirational. Nor are coloured lights on your tree – even if they do flash – or gold foil lanterns stuck to the ceiling with drawing pins.
I’m sure an Instagram influencer would have had a fit of the vapours if they’d visited my family’s home at Christmas. Every downstairs looked like the bar at the Queen Vic, with light beams pinging off at all angles from the slowly spinning foil-covered decorations and some ancient, coloured fairy lights merrily sparking on the (silver foil) Christmas tree in the corner.
And every picture, photo and mirror wore a length of tinsel laid across over the top.
Bliss. What Christmas should be about. Kitsch, camp, joyful and triumphant. Not a highly curated interior design project where your entire online reputation depends on having the same bauble scheme as one of the Kardashians.
Happily, I’m not having it. OK, there are no garlands, but there might be some tinsel here and there, and my tree will be defiantly off trend.
It will be decorated by my teenage sons, who will do it gloriously badly, just like they always did. It will have baubles that don’t colour co-ordinate and heritage decorations that have been with the family for ages. It will have coloured lights and will be gloriously haphazard.
It won’t reflect the spirit of the age, nor will it reflect current sensibilities. Instead, it will be a gauche rebellion and a pushback to the po-faced fashionistas with their minimalist trees, on-trend colour scheme and subtle design touches.
Because Christmas is Christmas. It’s the time when you close the front door to the world and its social judgements, allowing you to let it all hang out and do whatever you want – because this is the one time of year when less is most definitely not more.
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