After a long hiatus, my blog has returned. Let’s jump right into the deep end…
If you take a look around any home store right now they are bursting with decor and accessories. Quite rightly so, the holidays are the quintessential time to decorate the home with accessories. Pretty as all of those glittery baubles are, they are majorly lacking in one area: purpose and meaning. Let me explain…
This time last year I wrote about holiday decorations and included a cute poem depicting the sentiment of decorations. If you missed it, here’s the link: Twinkle & Sparkle. Now, I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t acknowledge that my home too is decorated with beautiful and curated store-bought decorations. I’ll even confess that I have a color coordinated Christmas tree that I put up with military tactical precision, calculating the distance between the same colors so as not saturate any area but rather evenly disperse the ornaments. (Seriously, I’m a real treat to decorate a Christmas tree with, its serious business. Occupational hazard, my apologies!)
But, with that precision, in the adjacent branches should be the ornaments that over time your family has created by gluing together popsicle sticks, knitting and crocheting bits of yarn, painting doilies, and drawing on tissue paper with markers. Children’s art and family heirlooms are so precious and the most meaningful decorations you’ll ever have. In my mind at least, therefor the most beautiful, deserving the front row center spots on the tree. Your tree will be forever the more humbly beautiful with them.
Another offender in the decor category besides pretty but meaningless holiday decor are the pointless accessories that stores sell to decorate your mantel, bookcase shelves, and coffee tables. You know the type of things I’m talking about, its the abstract armillary globe with the arrow sticking out for your mantel shelf or the droid looking horse head bookends for your bookcase. I think the worst one of all has to be the innocently placed, beautifully carved bowl on the coffee table but then is ruined with these five to seven “balls” sitting inside it. They’re usually made of wicker or painted resin and they do absolutely nothing. They sit in the bowl and just act as decor. Really? We as a society have come to this, we can’t leave the bowl empty to stand alone and just be? We have to fill it, don’t we? We’re uncomfortable unless there is something in the bowl. I issue a challenge to all of you with a bowl with these fake balls in them, for the New Year…toss out the balls.
What’s my point with this rambling rant? When decorating your home with accessories, think about their meaning and purpose. Are they a real item with history or are they simply shelf filler? Beautiful things are nice, but they should more importantly also hold a functional purpose or meaning to your heart. A decorative bowl can just be a bowl, in all its glory, and sit empty. Really, it will be OK, I promise you!
Have a great holiday season everyone, I’ll be back next year with fresh ideas and more satirical humor.
Sincerely,
Sarah Daricilar, NCIDQ
Studio Owner & Interior Designer
Daricilar Design Studio – Millis, MA