You’ve likely seen the photos—picturesque living rooms and staircases ruined by beige and white Christmas decorations. This recent trend in interior design, known as “millennial beige,” has taken over homes across the country, especially during the holiday season. Homes that once sported a Christmas tree decked out with red and green baubles or handmade ornaments now instead host wooden “trees” with minimal tinsel and gruesome beige decorations.
Beige Christmas is ruining the holiday spirit. The festivity around Christmas simply does not function when the decorations are blandly “aesthetic” rather than loud and celebratory.
When I think of Christmas or the holiday season, I recall joyous celebrations with my extended family as we gather in my grandparents’ cramped living room and unbox toys wrapped with vibrant green and red paper. I think of climbing a ladder to put a handmade angel on the very top of a toppling Christmas tree and wearing Santa hats or reindeer horns.
Christmas simply does not feel the same in a household with only beige, white, or wooden decorations. Bright colors, such as the traditional shades of red and green, have proven to release dopamine in the brain and boost overall mood, according to the National Library of Medicine. As the sun starts to set earlier in the evening and into the afternoon, we need this brain boost more than ever. We should bring back traditional, nostalgic holiday decorations like fuzzy red stockings and trees piled with ornaments holding precious memories.
This also applies to architecture in family homes. Social media has romanticized the “aesthetic” of beige baby clothes, toys, and room decor. The children in this phenomenon, also known as “beige babies,” will be impacted long after they move out of their monochrome homes.
When they reflect on memories from their childhood, these kids will see everything in beige. They may never know the teal bedrooms of the 2010s or the zebra stripes of the 2000s.
That is deeply upsetting, because childhood is supposed to be about fostering a child’s imagination, letting them believe in unicorns and dragons. There are no beige unicorns. A childhood without color becomes a life without joy, imagination, or hope.
The beige trend in home design and holiday decor was born out of recent minimalist trends. TikTok, along with other social media apps, have fueled minimalistic lifestyles such as the “clean girl aesthetic.” While these may be suitable for young adults or people who have outgrown color, this depressing aesthetic is not appropriate for kids.
No parent should sacrifice their child’s happiness for an aesthetic. Parents are supposed to listen to their kids’ needs and wants, not influence them with their own. If you’re a parent and want a bedroom featuring every shade of beige imaginable, have at it. But forcing your child to be subjected to a dull, beige nursery and Christmas decorations is just cruel.