Christmas Times, They Are a’ Changin
Tuesday 11th December 2007 by Cherry Menlove
When my siblings and I were small it was an exciting time as the decorations were brought down from the loft and we’d start to un-wrap the baubles that had been so lovingly preserved from the years before; glass baubles in an array of colours, multicoloured fairy lights and lashings of tinsel! Now what ever happened to tinsel?!?!
But, as the years went on and we grew older, the colours of Christmas began to change slightly. Out went the flashing necklace of coloured tree lights and in came a more sophisticated and slender version made entirely of white lights.
The dazzling baubles that had once fascinated me with the way my face changed shape as I peered into them, were all eventually (and accidentally) smashed and replaced with a huge amount of simple red and gold.
 The tree had grown up, and my siblings and I had too - so an adult looking tree was far more fitting for us and our new social lives than a display of all things ‘childhood’.
Now it has of course all changed once again. I balk at the idea of using red and green in abundance - even though it’ll take me a few years to eliminate those colours entirely from my decoration collection.
Colour is of course present but in muted form. Baby pinks and blues are on the scene and are no longer limited to new born baby gift baskets but can be used in abundance on trees and garlands.
Door wreaths have undergone a transformation as well. The chunky, green foliage that would sit, upstanding, on many a door is no longer necessary – unless of course you reside in a Scottish country pile.
I made two door wreaths this year for various reasons. One was, admittedly, built around a more traditional framework but as a point of difference I then decorated it with homemade, pale sugared plums
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 However the one that will sit on my door until the new year is made from toadstools and shiny, ceramic berries (pictured right).
Decorating at Christmas need no longer be about reaching into the far off places of your loft and dusting down worn out garlands; instead, it’s about working with colours, textures and styles that your home (and its surroundings – I don’t actually have toadstools in mine you see) already carries, whatever they may be.
Caroline Zoob  is a firm favourite and there are several others (Jan Constantine , Cox & Cox and The Original Wreath Co spring to mind) who have taken Christmas in a stylishly and elegantly pale direction.
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