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| The essence is restraint. |
Classic New England preppy Christmas decorations have two flavors.
The first is very simple and elegant, erring on solemn. One wreath on the front door, with just a red bow. A few white candle lights in the lower windows, and perhaps the same on the second story. A tree with lights and ornaments.
The second is a variation of the first, but with a bit of wit or whimsy. In my house growing up, all of the stuffed owls and water fowl (given to us by a Yale taxidermist) and decoys (carved by my grandfather) got little Christmas hats.
The essence is restraint. Basically, decorations are done right when they are easy to miss.
Dressing one's house, or heaven forbid one's pets, in such a way that competes with the local shopping mall is as unthinkable as smothering oneself in perfume or cologne and then stepping into a crowded elevator.
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| A bit of wit. A bit of ingenuity. |
Photo credits: Muffy Aldrich
The person who invented those inflatable lawn decorations should be drawn and quartered. Hideous.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Same for the person who invented the blinking lights!
DeleteAnd the person who invented those laser light displays, as well.
DeleteI agree they’re not something I want. Perhaps drawn and quartered is a severe penalty for someone who wants to do something for their children. To each his own. As my grandmother used to say “why do you care that others don’t dress as well as you do ? Enjoy the variety of life. Enjoy that we are a small unique minority “
DeleteAw, c'mon. I always get a hoot out of seeing an uninflated Santa, face down on the lawn. Looks like he got too far into the eggnog.
DeleteAgreed!
DeleteThank you! Restraint, moderation, and taste in all things. The final paragraph nailed it to a T. And RCJH, you read my mind.
ReplyDeleteKind Seasonal Regards,
Heinz-Ulrich
Elegant and festive.
ReplyDeleteSuperb in every respect! Timeless elegance always wins out! Thank you so very much! Cheers!❄
ReplyDeleteAnd what about the tree, tinsel or no tinsel?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely no tinsel! My perennial choice for holiday decoration is the northern European (read Scandinavian or German) way: evergreen, simplicity, cosiness, and Hygge!
DeleteJudicious use of tinsel is the preference of both long time family tree trimmers and knowing professional decorators. There’s good reason. However, one must hang tinsel strand by strand. A little bit goes a long way. It, yes, takes some patience. The stuff tangles easily, everyone knows. However, once hung, even the tiniest wisp of a waft of passing air will move ever so slightly each tinsel strand. These movements create constantly changing reflections of the tree’s lights. Watch what happens. Tinsel makes your tree come alive. Try it.
DeleteAgree with all about restraint and good taste. My young gradchildren like mulit-colored lights, blown up anything, and lots of everything. You can tell you're old when you disagree with young people.
ReplyDeleteTinsel is a no...what a mess it makes! Although I would not have them on my house, I really enjoy driving around looking at the really tacky light displays. Someone decorated the tank in front of our local Community Center with about a million lights this year, and tethered a giant inflatable reindeer to it. It cracks me up every time I see it, and it has the added chuckle factor of making my dog nervous. My personal Christmas decor taste runs to a balsam fir tree and thick garland, white lights, copper ornaments, candles, beautiful music, bonfires, gingerbread cookies, tea, spiked eggnog, Christmas cookies and stollen. I would love the season to last longer, but it is really bad for my figure!
ReplyDeleteI also like the little wreaths on the front of cars, and the car reindeer nose and antlers.. so cute! Our local school bus driver has the Grinch on the front of the bus. My 86 year old aunt has a light up plastic santa from the 1960s that she puts in front of the house...it goes "Ho Ho HO" does a little bow...kind of freaky and cool at the same time. My elderly neighbor used to put two giant light up candles in his front door and invite the neighborhood over for punch, served in a cut-glass bowl, in front of the fire. I love old fashioned colored lights too...I used to have those on the tree when my boys were little. Did you ever see the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge MA or Trapp Family Inn in Stowe at Christmas with the Christmas trees on the porch roof? This year we really need more reasons to smile!
ReplyDeleteOk, if we are talking tacky. . . I admit to having a 20" version of the infamous leg lamp from the film A Christmas Story (1983) here on my desk for the season. But otherwise, our decor inside and out is pretty simple in the Northern European mode as TwistyTree notes. We even woke to a few inches of new snow outside this morning here in Mid-Michigan. A pre-Christmas treat.
ReplyDeleteKind Regards,
H-U
Muffy, I hope your disapproval of dressing up pets for the holidays does not extend to the red berry wreaths I place on the necks of the two stone whippets which flank our entry.
ReplyDeleteWe are over the top this year with the tree up already (usually it is Christmas Eve). There are colored lights and a lifetime of collected ornaments. We have three (!) poinsettias and have changed out the candles for red ones. Of course there is a wreath on the door. The fruitcake has been aging. We made cookies for the neighbors and ate a few. Otherwise it is tranquil, as Advent should be. I think I'll put Bach on the record player, some solo piano.
ReplyDeletesigh .... yankees .... [wink from a Midwesterner]
ReplyDeleteSIGH...Midwesterners. Who asked? (no wink whatsoever.)
DeleteMidwestern...Lexington?
Deletehahahahaha. I guess some of us put our gaudy Christmas decorations on our houses and Christmas trees, and others, yankees, put them on a pair of bright red pants. "'C'est la vie' say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell."
ReplyDelete^ I have to admit, this gave me a laugh.
DeleteYale!?
ReplyDeleteOh hell no. That is scraping the bottom of the definition of New England. It is in the small pocket of NYC.
Harvard or YTFO.
Ahem. Simply because you graduated from Suffolk University which I am told is near Harvard does not mean you have license to disparage Yale. By the way, is Suffolk a four-year college?
DeleteThe Coco Chanel MO--decorate, then take one thing down.
ReplyDeleteThat’s the Ernest Hemingway approach. He said write your first draft, review it, then erase the best lines!
DeleteDon't forget the Wassail!
ReplyDeleteI revealed a prejudice I should have been but was dimly aware of decades ago when driving around the town greens (North and South) in Cohasset , Massachusetts. I was nineteen and a guest at my girlfriend's house to celebrate a cousin's engagement party at her uncle's house. On the way to the party we passed the commons' lights and decorations. Almost all the ones surrounding the greens were white combinations as mentioned above. I was surprised when my girlfriend's parents in the front seat said how much they liked the displays. I said to my girlfriend's horror, "Oh, you like white ones, too? I thought you'd like colored lights." You see, she and her family were/are Jewish and I thought 'WASPS only' were the ones who favored 'tasteful' white lights. I got a sharp poke in the ribs for that comment and have been suitably chastened ever since.
ReplyDeleteA German colleague of mine, who was posted in the U.S. for four years, fully embraced the American penchant for ostentatious, over-decorating. We both ended up in Brussels, and he and his wife invited us over for a pre-Christmas dinner. When I arrived, he was positively brimming, and could hardly contain his glee. He said, "I have something to show you," and bought me to his back door, whereupon he open the curtains to show me his back yard - which was full of at least a dozen, tacky inflatables. He said that he had to run at least 3 power converters, so they could run on the European power grid. But the best part, he said, was that they really pissed off his Belgian neighbors (which was why he couldn't put them in his front yard). So much for the Christmas spirit.
ReplyDeleteExtremely German indeed! Kitsch and piss off (sorry!) the neighbours.
DeleteThank you
ReplyDeleteThe essence is restraint. Indeed. Can't shake those Puritan ideals after 300+ years. One wonders what New England would be like today if Italians had landed at Plymouth Rock instead. Or Greeks.
ReplyDeleteThe did- far before, and the Vikings did also.... not to mention the well traveled land bridges.
DeleteWow! Just wow! So many things I could say, but restraint prevails.(and I am a person of Greek ancestry)
DeleteIf Italians landed at Plymouth Rock our churches would be filled with beautiful art, our food would be superb, and we would drive fast and flashy automobiles on an exceptional highway network.
ReplyDeleteThey wouldn’t have made it through the first winter. If they had, the whole place would look like New Jersey.
DeleteYou, might be right. No matter. Those who did land, later, found It tough to make their new homes look like Amalfi coast. And in the north of Italy, most never emigrated. They heard of what passes for mountains in our neighborhood of the New World. They preferred to stay home and tend their flocks in the valleys betwixt the peaks of the Alps and the Dolomites.
DeleteYou are right. “The essence is restraint.” Our four seasons present a natural landscape freed from regularity and, yes, restraint. But have you ever driven about rural New England in mud season? The white and silvery, twinkling blanket is gone. The greenery has not quite begun growing into what will soon lushly cover fields and forests. Our lands and architecture are exposed. It is not often a pretty scene. 300+ years? What have we done with those 300 years? A barn here. A barn there. Some old wooden houses. Now set aside, alas, metal utility buildings, strip malls, and “convenience stores.” This is restraint of a sort. I suppose. For where are the soaring cathedrals, the castles hanging on cliffs, the turreted chateaus? We have evidently been restrained from even building a pyramid or two. What have we been doing for 300 years? Thank God for the Congregational churches which our predecessors have left behind. What would our towns and villages look like without them?
ReplyDeleteTo each his own. I find beauty in no buildings at all far far from towns and villages.
DeleteYours is an understandable viewpoint. Anon 5:52 seems to be pointing out we, as a society, are leaving behind little admirable physical evidence of our presence. What édifices on our landscapes will be admired by future generations? Yes, of course there are handsome structures built in urban areas. But their numbers are really minuscule. People have to live, worship, and conduct commerce somewhere. Can not these activities be done in structures that inspire? Most small tows, and even many small villages, in some overseas countries, admittedly not all, boast many centuries old churches, administrative buildings and homes. The local populace is always justifiably proud of the works of their ancestors.
DeleteOur own decorations - outside- consist of a single strand of white lights on the boarder of our one-story house, a post light with candle-like bulbs and few color lights with pine garland wrapped around the post, and a wreath on the front door (a red -six panel door-Nancy Talbot would be proud).
ReplyDelete