Trying Not to Be the Grinch About the Holiday Aesthetic

Envy is one of life’s great motivators. Whenever I admire something—a blue wool coat of a stylish friend; celadon-green napkins of the same stylish friend—I scheme instantly about acquiring my own interesting coat, my own exquisite napkins. For me, admiration doesn’t stay abstract; it usually translates right into envy, and envy into action. Except once a year during the holidays, when I enter the homes of my friends and family. Festivity abounds! Nearly every surface seems to be festooned with twinkly lights, Santa figurines, and green felt or red velvet. I love the vibe. I admire earnest cheer. I’ve got nothing but gushing accolades for other people’s holiday knickknacks. And I cannot acquire them for my own home.

My appreciation for seasonal decor is vague: I want the atmosphere! My revulsion is specific: I simply do not like any of the items I see for sale. I’m almost frightened by the manic wooden snowman designed to freak me out from my mantelpiece, the bossy signs telling me to Be Merry. And those miniature bottlebrush trees! They make my eyes itch. I’ve spent years balking about attaining my own holiday decor. The seasonal sections of department stores reek of phony joviality to me. I abandon Etsy tabs of vintage ornaments with suspicion: how can I know if they’ll confer any meaningful sparkle in person?  I usually have no problem acquiring things: I’m in all the thrift stores. I’m constantly coveting medium-expensive home goods. But holiday decor is the striking exception; I can’t buy a single bauble. It reminds me of a friend who’s allergic to horses but thinks they’re the most beautiful animals. That’s me at Christmas: admiring from afar, irritable without a comfortable distance.

But this year, I’d like things to be different. It’s my first holiday season living with my partner in a house we plan to be in for the foreseeable future. For once, I can’t lean on a roommate to supply the seasonal verve and bring home a miniature, tree-shaped rosemary bush to liven up our apartment corner. This year, if I don’t introduce some holiday mirth, there will simply be none. (My partner, a smart and wise person, knows that when it comes to decor, I can be picky and prone to like, banishing an entire shade of blue from the home. In sum: I am the only set designer on the premises.) I know a loophole awaits; there is a way to make a festive atmosphere that doesn’t feel phony to me. I just have to fashion it.

I feel resentful about being forced into minimalism. To me, the Christmas aesthetic means more is more. I want things!

My first instinct was to reach out to a handful of people whose tastes I trust—a furniture designer whose work I’ve always wanted; a home goods stylist I admire; an impossibly cool florist with a shop near my house in Philadelphia—about how they decorate for Christmas. This approach misfired miserably. It turns out, a number of them really can’t stand holiday decor either. Two immediately went off the record to tell me they can’t abide by any holiday decor, or seasonal decor in general, but they didn’t want anyone to know. The advice I received from this brain trust of aesthetes? Turn to nature. Holly berries, lush evergreen garlands, the stately, bare tree. Here’s the thing: I feel resentful about being forced into minimalism. To me, the Christmas aesthetic means more is more. I want things! I refuse to let lonely greenery be my only future for festivity. 

Sparse leafy arrangements, however, are preferable to the absolutely dreaded red-and-green collision. (Frankly, I don’t like blue and white much better; I’m half Jewish, half Episcopalian, and in my opinion, neither side got a good color scheme for their winter holidays.) "Red and green is the most difficult color palette," says trend forecaster and artist Gretchen Wagner, who specializes in color theory. "Complementary colors are intended to oppose one another. They almost have a vibrating boundary with one another, which is really aggravating for the eyes. It causes a lot of visual fatigue because the colors are so active."

Even though Wagner shares some of my allergy to a deluge of manufactured "jolly," she does have affection for certain elements. In fact, many of the stylish people I spoke to shared one particular description about the holiday decor they love: it’s sentimental and ugly. A felt elf figure with googly eyes. A hideous but adorable popsicle ornament your father made as a child. A strange silver bowl carved to look like several chestnuts forged together, its tackiness unprecedented, its magic in spite and because of its useless mystery. I think of my family’s scrappy, weathered, and weird Christmas decor—Nutcrackers with missing noses, embroidered angels on an apron tied to a sculpture of a torso.

"The true Christmas spirit is a very ugly tree," says Sammi Bateman, a former store window designer and current proprietor of The Merrygold Shop in South Philadelphia. Bateman is famous around her neighborhood for her grandmother’s vintage, hand-stitched ornaments that hang on the Christmas tree in her store. At home, Bateman decorates her tree with antique ornaments made from painted glass, felt, and sequins, but her partner loves Star Wars and the Philadelphia Flyers—and has the holiday decor to prove it. "Typically, I would be like, ‘No, that’s never gonna live in my beautiful home,’ but I’m just like, ‘Yeah, put it on the tree! It makes you happy!’"

The problem is, you can’t just acquire sentimental crafts and heirlooms; these meanings form from personal moments or develop over generations.

Wagner describes her childhood Christmas tree setup as "a dumping ground of beauty and grotesque crafts" with her mother’s "sophisticated" glass ornaments, colorful retro lights, and cotton ball crafts she and her sister made as second graders. Beauty and grotesque—that’s the mix I’ve been craving! The problem is, you can’t just acquire sentimental crafts and heirlooms; these meanings form from personal moments or develop over generations. Prop stylist Paige Wassel agrees: "If it’s something of importance or a handmade thing, it’s from your niece or nephew, or it’s passed down to you, it’s always going to look good. As someone who’s not sentimental, I fully believe that the object has a sense. But yeah, it cannot be made to happen." 

Instead of succumbing to meaningless holiday decor in the absence of my own sentimental objects, I’ve decided this year to put out a bowl of pomegranates. They appeal to me for being slightly off—a deeper cardinal red than the usual candy apple, and with symbolism unrelated to the occasion (fertility, in Greco-Roman lore). I’m also eyeing a handful of pomegranate ceramics and decor and am toying with getting a silk table runner to put the pomegranates on, as well as adding ribbons to garlands and maybe on the backs of chairs. For now, that feels like a big enough first foray into the world of seasonal decor. And if experience tells me anything, you only need to begin a small collection of specialty items like pomegranate trinkets and then everyone who notices will give you similar things forever—which is really a conclusion about festive decor: it must be given, it cannot be acquired.

To avoid the tiring red-and-green tussle, I decided to stick with monochromatic fabric choices. I ran my color scheme by Wagner to see if the shade I was most drawn to—chartreuse—would play nicely with the evergreens. 

Her response mirrored my fussy seasonal spirit right back at me. 

"Oh, like the Grinch’s color? It’s perfect." 

Top illustration by Scott Wilson.

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