We have a new Christmas wreath hanging on our door this holiday season.
It’s cut out of cardboard and has gobs of white glue securing foraged ferns, dried leaves and clipped twigs to it.
This new creation replaces a pricey wreath I purchased at Billies in Squamish a few years back in a flurry of holy-shit-I’m-a-mom-I-have-to-make-Christmas-special panic. But I’ll happily pack away that arguably more aesthetic offering in place of this cut-and-paste version because my three-year-old saw that neighbours had wreaths on their doors and she wanted to make her own.
It has already blown off the hanger once, but I fished it out of a puddle, gave it a shake and hung it back up. It brings me so much joy to see this handcrafted holiday cheer on our door.
All of this is build up to my controversial opinion: your white Christmas lights suck.
OK, they don’t suck. They actually look really great. I can tell you’re classy and put a lot of effort into your decorations.
I mean, now that I’m thinking about it, you probably never have to rewash your laundry because it sat in the washing machine too long, do you? I bet your car is vacuumed regularly and you buy new winter boots before they have a full-fledged hole in them.
Wait, do I want to be a white-light person?
Maybe, but I don’t think you can switch. You’re born one or the other.
But back to my argument. White lights are not what Christmas should be. It shouldn’t be crisp, formal adult whites. It should be fun and whimsical, messy and bright.
Santa isn’t sleek. He’s big and bouncy. His cheeks are too red and his beard is too long. He’s not going to greet your kids with a firm handshake. He’s got a warm lap and a hug and he is ready to hear about all the pricey items your little one has dreamed up.
Next you’re going to tell me you outsourced your gingerbread house to professionals and you bought one of those fake trees with the lights permanently installed in them so they don’t look haphazard and twisted.
Come to think of it, I’d hazard a guess coloured-Christmas-light people like me are the ones who go and cut down a kind-of-shitty/kind-of-charming Charlie Brown Christmas tree while white-light people are the ones who are buying a gloriously bushy, perfectly grown version from a Christmas tree lot.
White-light people, you would not like the tree we got last year. Its branches could barely hold up ornaments and when we left for the holidays we forgot it needed watering and then, when we tried to get it out of the house, it shed literally EVERY SINGLE needle onto the floor. No, I’m not exaggerating for effect. We found stray brown tree needles until March.
But, you know what, we strapped on a baby and grabbed a be-mittened toddler and a saw and we went on an adventure to get that tree. And afterwards we made hot chocolate—actually, I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty sure we bought it from Starbucks and also I think the dog licked the snowman cookie and I had to go back and get a second one—and decorated the tree and made a Christmas memory.
Christmas is meant to be tacky, messy, and joyful. (Like looking in a mirror!)
Tinsel? That stuff is a beautiful, sparkly nightmare!
Inflatable lawn decorations? My one-year-old learned the word “penguin” when she saw our neighbour’s because it brought her so much joy.
Stockings hung by the chimney with care? They look best when the letters that used to spell your name are falling off because of decades of greedily ripping them open in the pre-dawn on Dec. 25.
Christmas Day itself? It’s wrapping paper everywhere and piles of dishes and noisy families and general chaos.
At least, I would argue that’s the best way to do it.
But you can take my opinion with a grain of salt because I’m not a white-light person.
