‘Low-fat’ Christmas decor is a Scrooge-like craze, garland everything & add sparkle, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen begs
THE latest trend is for pared-back festive decor, but interior design guru Laurence, 59, slams it for being Scrooge-like.
Quite frankly, anyone involved in minimalism at Christmas needs to get a grip.
Bare wooden branches and industrial metal frames? There’s just no excuse for it.
I fear that anyone following this trend, which is growing in popularity across the high street this year, must be severely insecure — and they probably own hairless cats.
The whole point of this mid-winter festival is indulgence and absolutely giving in to excess and enjoyment.
We should be trying to build up a stock of gorgeous, fabulously overdecorated memories that will take us right through into dreary January and February — not strip things back.
This whole idea of trying to make Christmas “modern”, with sad, sparse trees and other dull decor is just the most ridiculous concept ever.
It will never be modern. The whole point of Christmas is that it is a time of tradition and child-like wonder.
It’s when you see how beautiful and sparkly your world can be, when everything outside is boring.
I learnt this the hard way when my two daughters, Celine, 29, and Hermione, 25, were very small.
I’d been on a Christmas-themed photoshoot for a magazine and I brought home some tiny terracotta pots with jute bows for our Christmas tree.
Celine gasped: “No, this cannot be Christmas — this is not what it looks like.”
She was appalled — and rightly so. Christmas should be ornate and beautiful.
The idea of having a “low-fat” Christmas, when it comes to decor, is just the worst thing in the world.
I feel sorry for who feel they can get away with making bows out of trendy bits of linen.
Lurex and cocktails
Or that having a twig in the corner of the room is going to impart some sort of festive spirit.
It’s not.
They may as well have a mummified Scrooge in the lounge.
It would have the same effect.
I’m actually very tolerant of those people who go completely over the top and cover the outside of their house in hundreds of lights
Laurence
Historically, Christmas is a festival of light.
Everywhere you go in the world, people are lighting up the darkest of places, even in the darkest moments.
I’m actually very tolerant of those people who go completely over the top and cover the outside of their house in hundreds of lights.
Why not? You see it in America, where the whole place radiates a rather garish glow.
But indulgence is very personal.
The worst thing you can do is to follow what everyone else does.
Even slaves to the dreadful grey-naissance that has been taking over homes in recent years take this opportunity to break free and add some sparkle.
I say you should be as sparkly as possible, wear as much Lurex as you can think of, drink cocktails and eat wonderful things.
That said, there simply has to be some sophistication when you dress your home — and yourselves.
So please, none of those synthetic festive onesies and matching pyjamas.
Or those awful slippers that you put two feet into.
They’re dreadfully dangerous and not at all glamorous.
Christmas is about becoming something you’re normally not.
It’s a time to pimp up your life and flirt with the dark art of some quite scary colour combinations around the home.
I’m enjoying bright oranges and peacock greens this winter.
There’s a lot of this in the shops right now.
And I’ve always been a fan of festive garlands — the bushier the better.
You can always trim them down. I’ve been known to garland everything in sight — even the flat-screen TV.
You can hang baubles and little presents from the chunkier garlands and drape some LED lights over them. They look spectacular.
While it’s wonderful to have your own family traditions, it’s also nice to keep moving forward and create a few new ones along the way.
When I moved to the Cotswolds, I had to embrace my new low ceilings and ditch my usual enormous real tree. That’s when my garlanding began.
Years ago, we had this Christmas nativity scene that we would wheel out every December when my daughters were young.
But one year Jesus’ crib went missing — you can imagine the sadness — so we plonked him on a ridged crisp instead.
Yes, really. I can’t remember the flavour of the crisp, but it worked a treat and we brought out that same crisp crib every Christmas.
Shiny and ornate
It lasted for about 20 years before it finally crumbled.
This year, my eight-year-old grandson Albion is hoping to inject his Manga obsession into our Christmas.
I can work with that and craft some Manga-themed decorations of sorts.
If you are trying to fight against this with minimalism, then it really does show that you ARE a Scrooge and you ARE a Grinch
Laurence
One of the most important things that I would wish for everyone, for Christmas, is to surrender all control and welcome absolutely everything into your home.
I’m talking about sparkle, light, colour and anything shiny and ornate.
If you are trying to fight against this with minimalism, then it really does show that you ARE a Scrooge and you ARE a Grinch.
And the worst thing is that you’re denying yourself, not to mention risking accidentally impaling yourself on the branches of your spartan metal tree.
Having said all this, I grew up with the Christmases of the Sixties and Seventies, which spanned a period of Scandi-chic in the home.
But this was all shelved for two weeks of the year, when my family would bring out a bold gold-and-white tinsel tree.
It was like a space-age incarnation of Christmas — which was all rather wonderful.
One of my best childhood memories of Christmas was when the fairy lights came out.
They were almost kinky and inappropriate with their bright berry-red colour.
Coloured lights were quite a rarity back then.
Today, what I hate almost as much as minimalism at Christmas is a fake Dickensian Christmas.
And those that have been influenced by films like Home Alone, with their enormous unachievable baubles that hide the whole tree.
But I would like to end on a positive festive note.
A huge part of Christmas — and one of the best parts — is the effort it takes to get everything ready.
Making time in our busy lives to do something that is fundamentally pointless is both rare and wonderful.
It’s about shying away from that easy fix, showing those you love that they are worth the effort — and that you are too.
So I’m encouraging you to go even further with your decor this year and see how original you can really be.