What does your holiday decorating look like?
I spend an unhealthy amount of time on the Christmas side of instagram, watching perfectly lit and stage reels showing off their creators' versions of perfect holiday decor. Spend more than a few minutes there and you will learn that this year the Ralph Lauren Christmas is trending, along with velvet bows, and the viral velvet christmas chain.
I absolutely admit that I am struggling with the velvet christmas chain because I could do that! Easily! I don’t think it is just the “how hard can that be?” voice in my head telling me that, I really think I could do it. The caveat, and I think the point of all of it, is that I don’t have the right velvet ribbon, so I would have to buy some. If I was planning on a cream and navy and silver and gold Christmas I could, I have navy with silver velvet ribbon, and I have cream with gold, but then I'd have to change something else I planned… Plus I am really trying to talk myself out of the new soft touch christmas greenery garland, which I absolutely do not need.
Even the creators advocating for a DIY, “use what you have” aesthetic are showcasing carefully curated dried orange slices and cinnamon sticks, tied with hand braided twine, and foraged evergreen branches and handmade artisanal candles. They use gorgeous knives to slice the oranges atop thick wood cutting boards that have been oiled with magic holiday essence ethically harvested by a local fairy co-op. The scissors they use to cut the twine are hand crafted by local dwarves who devote the proceeds to feed unicorns and butterflies.
I get it, the point of instagram is winning all the views so you show off a carefully curated narrative and show off gorgeous pictures to do that. I work in social media, I know that. I chase views on my personal instagram with the ridiculous glue peel reels that are loved by strangers. Thousands of strangers.
But please, someone, show me a mismatched christmas tree? A homemade garland made of whatever tied together with a shoelace because you can’t even find string? I could forage items from my yard to make a garland but mostly dead leaves and dried sunflower stalks do not a beautiful garland make. When I get ready to show off my holiday decor, I am going to stage things so you don’t see the boxes on the dining room table because there isn't room in the pantry, and the cat’s cardboard scratching toys that in the fireplace, beneath the beautifully decorated mantle. Just please know, that the vision I am showing off? It is not real, at least it is not really the whole story.
This year, like last year, our Christmas party will be at Matthew’s house, and he is letting me help take over his Christmas decorating this year. I mean he could decorate and it would be a combination of penguin christmas, and a 9 ladies dancing christmas tree, and a mini silver tinsel tree. Not that there is anything wrong with that. However, also, still, I did just spend 25 days of day drinking and crafting and those crafts do need to be shown off. Somehow.
I am not offering a solution to this problem, just pointing it out, and admitting my part in the silliness. So when you get the christmas guilt of comparing your real life to the picture perfect curated ones you see online, please remember, it is not real. Please don’t judge your life against someone else's made up image of a perfect life?
Deck those halls, y'all.
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