The List: Ranking holiday decorations that linger too long - Columbus Alive

dogol.indah.link

It's February. Time to send Santa packing.

There appears to be some confusion out there as to what holiday decorations are acceptable past mid-January. Alive is here to clear things up. Here’s a list of Christmas flourishes ranked from how much I want them gone to how much I can look at them without grimacing.

“Live” Christmas tree

“Live” is a misnomer. This tree was already dead when you strapped it to the top of the car. Now it’s really dead. Like fire-hazard-level dead. Don’t be a monster. Get rid of it.

Anything with Santa on it

St. Nick sees you when you’re sleeping, and he knows when you keep his visage around into the new year.

Fake Christmas tree

Seeing any type of Christmas tree through a window in February is utterly depressing. Keeping a fake one up is almost as bad as keeping the “live” one around.

Reindeer

Live reindeer are OK. All the others should be back at the North Pole by now (Rudolph included).

Candy canes

Peppermints in circular form? Perfectly fine year-round. Peppermints shaped like a cane? An abomination after Jan. 10.

Multi-colored lights

Once Jan. 2 hits, these make me sad. All the multicolored strands are merely painful, tacky reminders that Christmas is over and winter is not.

Button garland

This entry likely applies only to my house, and it’s something my wife and I are at odds over. Every late November/early December, she strings strands of button garland around our dining room — a bunch of reddish buttons (and some pink) in various sizes threaded over some kind of twine. She likes to keep these up until Valentine’s Day, because then the button garland can serve double duty, especially when paired with the red-and-white placemats that also stick around through mid-February. I do not agree with this decision. I don’t even love the button garland over Christmas, to be honest, and I haven't ever felt the need to decorate for Valentine’s Day. But I have also learned that, in a marriage, some things are worth fighting for, and others are not. (No charge for that.)

Frosty the Snowman

Still tacky, but I’ll concede that we’re obviously still in a snowy season, so if an outdoor Frosty brings you some joy, well, OK. But anything indoors has to go.

Wreaths

As the timeless adage goes, “Wreaths with red bow, no go. Wreaths all green... are fine.”

Garland

Again, similar rules apply. If the garland is overtly Christmas-y, with a bunch of red embellishments, it becomes a sad reminder of what was, and of how winter has taken so much of your inner will that you’ve let it sap your ability to put things away in the attic. But if it resembles a healthy strip of evergreen, I’ll let it slide. Although it should go without saying that if you’re trying to keep previously living garland around, it’s past time to let go.

Indoor plants with holiday reputations

If your poinsettias still look good through January, more power to you, but February is the cutoff for prominently featured red-and-green motifs. (Christmas cacti are exceptions; if you can keep those alive year-round, and get them to bloom over the holidays, you should get some sort of award.) I always do a few rounds of bright-white, fragrant paperwhites, though. Sometimes amaryllis, too. When everything outside is brown and dormant, you could make a good argument for just about any type of indoor plant all winter long.

White lights

This may be controversial, but I’m in favor of keeping white lights up all through the winter. They don’t scream “Christmas,” but they do add a warm, magical touch outside, especially when reflecting off the snow. It’s a natural look. And with the number of gray days in these Ohio winters, any bit of magic is welcome. Just please, for the love of all that is sacred, don’t make them twinkle.

The Link Lonk


February 12, 2021 at 03:31AM
https://ift.tt/2Nfk7fY

The List: Ranking holiday decorations that linger too long - Columbus Alive

https://ift.tt/2QoXNjh
Holiday