Christmas traditions have changed a great deal over the decades. Sometimes that meant getting rid of actual candles in favor of tinsel and eventually tinsel went out the door out of health concerns. Lately, minimalism has seen popularity among millennials to create a “beige Christmas” that Gen Z is ready to move past as well.
The beige Christmas trend is all about streamlining, minimizing colors, and keeping things plain. Perhaps its artful, but people in their pre-teens and early twenties want overwhelming color back, complete with bulky ornaments and cutesy decor, and the push has been aided by a now-viral TikTok about the subject. The way they see it, that represents the comforting nostalgia of Christmas.
Gen Z wants to put an end to the beige Christmas millennials are favoring
Over on TikTok, content creator Avery has declared an end to beige Christmas in her household. “I have decided that I will not be participating in minimalist, beige Christmas this year,” she says in a viral video that now has well over a million views. “The theme this year is nostalgic, early 2000s Christmas.” Sure enough, the video shows a Christmas tree bursting with color from lights and ornaments of various styles.
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“I think it’s the coziness that comes with decorating in a way that it looks like someone lives there and it’s not a Crate and Barrel showroom that just draws me to the colorful lights and the random wrapping paper.”
Season’s greetings
Even Avery did not anticipate her own eventual preference for saturated Christmas decor. “If you done told me I was going to do rainbow lights on my house a few years ago, I would have laughed at you,” she admitted. “But I’m obsessed with these. I feel like these are so Christmas, they’re so fun and they just put me in the holiday spirit.”
So, the abundance of color and coziness is drawing Gen Z back to the nostalgic look of Christmas past – outlets are likening it to The Grinch and National Lampoon – but what drew millennials to minimalist beige Christmas?
“I loved the minimalist Christmas until I had kids,” one commenter wrote, “now I want to make sure they experience the Christmas magic I did growing up.” Though not limited to Christmas, beigification, as PureWow calls it, has been taking over for some time in houses, general decor, clothing, and more. HGTV helped popularize it as the suburban ideal, and as a design choice, it is a way to add warmth using a subtle color that won’t be difficult to work with like orange or brown. PureWow also theorizes the trend enjoyed heightened popularity as a way for people to easily inject subtle coziness into their homes in the wake of the tumult from the COVID-19 pandemic.
What style of Christmas decor do you like?
@ave.abe I usually dont decorate until after thanksgiving but I might change that this year #christmasdecor #nostalgicchristmas #colorfulchristmas #maximalist #maximalistchristmas #nostalgia #interview #fyp #greenscreen #christmaslights