Christmas 1993. My first Christmas tree in my own/non-shared apartment, in the peach-colored building on Haight & Fillmore. I'm excited. I'm elated. I'm tending bar at Jack's and got pockets of cash and am mad stoked to get a tree.And boy, do I. I go out and get a 7-footer. It's so big my Dad had has to anchor it with twine on two sides to the walls. I do it up - colored lights, colored ornaments, the works (it's the latent Latina in me that loves anything busy and colorful). I think it's beautiful, and I love it. I'm especially fond of taking a cab home from work at 3am and seeing it winking at me from the bay window.
Two years later. Christmas 1995. I'm now living in the Fell House with Hippie Princess and Snow Hostess. We're all psyched to get our tree. I offer my collection of lights and ornaments and Snow Hostess sticks her nose up the in air and says colored lights are atrocious.
But I had them on my tree on Fillmore and they were beautiful, I say. Actually, she says, I thought your tree was really tacky. This grows into a full-blown three-way Roman Senate-style debate that ends with me losing and the edict handed down that in this house it will always be white lights, period. The tree is monochromatic in white lights and gold and silver balls. My colorful ornaments stay packed, too Mexican and tacky for such refined sensibilities. Every year it is the same: silver and gold, with perhaps, if I can sneak it in, a touch of chili-pepper red.
This paranoia of colored lights sets in and even once I move out and get my own place again I'm still terrified of appearing all ghetto so every year I do white lights and by this time I even think I prefer white lights. My tree still sports only gold and silver balls but I do begin to reintroduce color - a red beaded heart, colorful Mexican tin ornaments from Olvera Street, a lovely whimsical silver-red-and-green Celtic heart - as accents.
I haven't had a proper big tree in three years and this year I'm getting one if it's the last thing I do. Seven feet and everything. And I've got a whole giant box of white lights in the guest room closet to string onto it. But lately I've been digging the colored lights I see on my neighbor's trees and I find myself second-guessing the White Lights Only aesthetic I've cultivated for so many years now.
I just texted my best friend, always my arbiter of taste, 'Are colored Christmas lights EVER okay?' and am waiting breathlessly for a response back from NYC. While I'm waiting, I'll ask YOU: are colored Christmas lights tacky?
7 comments:
Im going through the same thing! I love the colored lights, too. It's the kid in me. I have plenty of both. And bright eclectic ornaments. I think you should color it Christmas, baby. You can do white on the windows! -h
no they are not tacky. colored lights are warmth and fun. i always thought white lights were cold. now i like them. but not on my tree. i like colored lights. they are spicey with variety. like life.
you ROCK the color, girl!
It depends. I went through the shabby chic, all pastel colors at one stage but having moved to another Victorian 2.6 years ago with anything but white or ecru walls--I have started to go with more vibrant colors again. So, it depends on what your style at the moment, my dear. If you feel like having loud colors for the holidays, consider yourself healed from the whiteness of it all!
Putting a tree in your house is tacky anyway so why fuck around and try to make it otherwise, use the colored lights, besides, lending any credence to the opinion of people referred to as Snow Hostess or Hippie Princess is just plain crazy. Let's get real, Jesus wants colored lights.
You know, I don't think it's tacky as much as I think it looks too busy. I have blue and white lights and then I decorate with small gold lame bows tied to the ends of the branches, glittery silver snowflakes, and an assortment of blue,silver and gold bulbs that are decorated with different designs in glitter.I have been told my tree looks like a upscale department store tree.
The louder the better! it is Christmas! Hurray!
Personally, I'm have the same argument with my boyfriend. I have my own pre-lit, 6-ft fake tree with white lights, which I've been using on my own for the past 2 Christmas'. I have mostly gold and silver ornaments, with a few colored, heirloom-ish ornaments peppered about. I like it alot. It looks very nice and tasteful. The thought of having a 4-ft real tree, sitting on a 3-ft table (so he can assemble a train to move about the base of the tree), with blinky, colored lights and different colored ornaments all over just makes me nauseous! I can't take it! How the heck do I break it to him??
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