Has anyone else noticed that Christmas decorations seem to be different colors than usual this year?
We’ve made a couple of trips to buy wrapping paper, and have been surprised at the choices available. It has been quite difficult to find paper in what I would consider the more “traditonal” colors of rich berry red and forest green. The colors of holly, evergreen trrees, and cranberries. This year, the red seems to have more of an orange, tomatoey hue, and the greens tend towards lime and olive. Instead of deep midnight blues, silver and white are being paired with a light skyblue.
And there are other colors as well. I saw a lot of wrapping paper in a cocoa brown - even black. In combination with the patterns on the papers, the whole thing seems to convey a “mid-century modern” kind of feel.
And it isn’t just wrapping paper. We saw stockings in various shades of lime green or teal blue, and inflatable santas in colors ranging from pinkish to orangish.
What really surprised me was the completeness with which these colors and patterns seem to have driven out the colors and patterns I was looking for. We didn’t do an exhaustive search, but we did go to a Hallmark store, the Jewel-Osco, The Container Store, and Target - the last of which had aisle upon aisle with hundreds - if not thousands - of rolls of paper. And instead of finding ANY papers we really liked, we had to look pretty hard to find a couple that we thought were “okay.”
That’s been going on for many, many years. Not the exact shades we’re seeing this year, those change every 3-5 years as fashion trends shift, but the general concept? Yeah, I’ve been seeing stuff like that since I was of an age to buy my own Christmas decorations and wrapping paper.
I can’t comment on how prevalent what you’re looking for is, because we bought our wrapping paper on clearance last year and I made all our stockings years ago. But looking over the wrapping box, we’ve got an assortment of True Christmas Red and Green and more modern twists on the traditional colors. Unopened, or just opened in the last couple days, from last year we have: a true red slightly lighter than the average Santa suit with white and ciel blue snowflakes; a robin’s egg background striped with gold, Santa red, and royal blue; cream stripes with traditional green trees in apple-green pots and red-orange stripes with cranberry holly leaves. Opened from previous years we have: Penguins on Santa suit red with apple green bow ties; plum purple with glittery ornaments in fuschia, teal, and acid green; and navy blue with various Christmas motifs in Santa red, cranberry, teal, purple, and hot pink.
I did a little googling, and saw a couple of articles mentioning “trends” in Christmas colors specifically mentioning light blues and mint greens. Wonder what your choices will be when you shop clearance THIS year…
With our kids older, we find ourselves wrapping less. Needing only a roll or 2, we did not need to focus on terribly low cost. Our home and holiday decorations tend to be pretty traditional. Normally there are any number of patterns that we find attractive - it was just a bit of a shock to see the plethora of paper at Target, with no more than a couple of “traditional” patterns which we considered acceptable, and none that really knocked our socks off.
About once every 20 years, society goes through an “ugly phase” where brown becomes a trendy color. It doesn’t last long, but things can be rather dreary while it’s here
I’ve seen it too. It’s gotten to the point where if I see gift wrap that is a color/pattern I like, I pick it up. (At the after-Christmas sales, of course.)
