Since the 2010’s, there has been a very noticeable lack of holiday cheer in the air. People aren’t decorating their homes as much, or engaging in activities like caroling. While the holidays remain a special time in people's hearts, there isn't any expression of how much people love the holidays and how treasured they are.
While walking down the street this December, there will be very little that could reveal Christmas is fastly approaching. There are no decorations or Christmas lights in town. There are a few different factors that work together to create an absence of Christmas decorations. The first being, “beige Christmas” a minimalist style of decorating that started trending on Pinterest and other social media platforms in the early 2010’s. Stemming from the increase in clean simple aesthetics, the trend became more present in home decor at the time. As people got into the habit of not really decorating as much, the habit became harder to break.
Another factor is that the current median age of first time homeowners in the U.S., at 40 years old, (a record high for the country) only 24 percent to 36 percent of those homeowners have children. When homeowners and their children are both older, they are less likely to care about decorating and no longer have children to motivate them into doing it, it's unlikely they will continue to decorate.
The last key factor is the one affecting businesses. Businesses are less likely to decorate because of the rising cost and focus on the clean simple modern aesthetic that big business love, being extraordinarily evident in the design change fast food businesses have been going through since the 90s.
“Beige Christmas” may seem like something unimportant, but it truly matters a lot. Decorating a house, business or even doing something as simple as putting up Christmas lights could help spread cheer and make the holiday season brighter. Christmas season can be a stressful time of the year with everyone rushing for gifts and planning parties. There's no doubt that something simple like seeing Christmas lights or a snow-man wearing a Santa hat could brighten up a lot of people's day. Christmas is a wonderful time of year and everyone should try to appreciate that more, yet it seems that nobody does and they are content to simply bask in the rampant consumerism while ignoring the Christmas spirit.
