Well, Christmas is over. Now only 363 more shopping days until next Christmas. *rolls eyes*
As mentioned, I did manage to keep Christmas and myself a safe distance apart this year. I did, however, not understand the Christmas decor that I saw this year. Specifically, purple. There was purple Christmas decor in the lobby of my office building, at my doctor’s office, and in a number of places out and about.
Now I understand the whole idea of liturgical colors, and how Advent = purple. But that doesn’t explain what seems like purple’s explosion into secular Christmas decorations. Seriously, all of the places where I saw the purple Christmas decor made no indication of any sort of religion in the decor. Even my office building, which always decorates the first floor lobbies in December and normally also includes a menorah and a Kwanzaa candle holder on the front desk, omitted the menorah and the Kwanzaa candle holder this year. Go fig. And they went all out on purple.
This is what the first floor decor in my office building looked like this season:
Purple ornaments, purple ribbons, purple trim, and purple presents under the tree. That’s pretty purple. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that any of it looks bad – but I just consider purple to be an interesting choice of color for secular Christmas decor. In past years, the stuff in the first floor lobbies has been trimmed in red and gold, which I think most would consider to be a more typical Christmas color. I documented the decor’s going up in 2007 (see a wreath and the tree), and that year, the decor was red and gold, and 2008-2010 were similar in the decor.
Now for the other places that I saw that chose purple, I don’t recall what they did in past years. But I don’t remember ever seeing this much purple in Christmas decor before. Maybe this is the latest fad in Christmas? I guess, however, that if you’re trying to get your decorations noticed, purple is a good way to do it. I certainly noticed them…