The Colour Collaborative: December - Celebration

For me, December is a month packed full of celebrations. Of course there is Christmas, one of the biggest events in our calendar; whatever your religious views, it's a celebration of light, warmth, family, food and joy as much as anything else. And then there are the birthdays. Bella was born on the 18th of the month. My sister, Anna, celebrated hers on Monday, the 23rd. And today my other sister, Katy, shares her birthday with her son, my nephew, Jeremy. It's busy, happy and more than a little chaotic.

When I think back over the last few years of December celebrations, I can't think of a single colour that sums it all up, that represents celebration for me. If anything, I'd say it's a bit like a rainbow glitterball, or a box of Quality Street chocolates. Every colour is used in abundance with a fair amount of glitter and sparkle thrown in for good measure. Nothing is really very planned or coordinated, but everything is full of meaning and memory. 

Traditional colours for this month are usually green, red and white, all colours which appear in nature at this time of year. Holly and mistletoe, leaves and berries, wreathes and branches - even in the bleakest, darkest midwinter month the hues and tones we find in the natural world outside will bring interest and colour into our homes. I am constantly drawn to these colours when I think of Christmas - they say Christmas trees, candy canes, Father Christmas and candlelight to me.

I use red in the stockings I made Bella and Angus, in the poinsettias that line my kitchen windowsill every December, in the fake berry wreath we hang on the front door. I don't decorate with red much in our home - I sometimes find it a dominating, jarring colour - but in winter it's warmth is welcome.

There is the green of our tree, of course, and the greenery I bring indoors and string about the house each December. Sometimes bought, sometimes foraged, it always reminds me that spring is ahead.

Our tree decorations are an "eclectic" mix. I look with envy and awe at my friends' perfect, colour coordinated, elegant trees. I was chatting about Christmas trees with some friends recently and said how much I'd like to just decorate a tree with white lights and nothing else one year. No, they said. It would look too municipal, too much like the big tree the council puts up in the town square each year. I won't ever do it though, as I'd be too sad not to use the decorations that belonged to my Grandma, like that mustard yellow bauble from the seventies above. And the green stocking she knitted, or that awful bright pink bauble above that Bella brought home from school two years ago. It's hideous and I treasure it. Nothing on our tree matches but that's fine. It's a family home not an interior design magazine.

And then we have the primary brights of primary school Christmas cards and toilet roll nativity sets, the bright, glittery blue of this saltdough "A" Angus brought home from school last week.

And the rest is a muddle of colour; some orange in the piles of clementines and satsumas we buy and eat at this time of year, white in the light from the candles dotted around the house and in the snowy icing sugar on top of the mince pies, pink and purple in the winter sunsets and boxes of sweets and chocolates. And all colours are there in the piles of presents under the tree, with their shiny ribbons and glittery bows, and in the rainbows of smarties I always seem to use to decorate birthday cakes.

What colours sum up December celebrations for you? Traditional and Nordic with red, white and green? Minimal and elegant with white, gold and silver? Or modern and bright with hot pinks, purples, yellows and oranges? Or are you a bit like me, all of it thrown in for good measure?

What is The Colour Collaborative? All creative bloggers make stuff, gather stuff, shape stuff, and share stuff. Mostly they work on their own, but what happens when a group of them work together? Is a creative collaboration greater than the sum of its parts? We think so and we hope you will too. We'll each be offering our own monthly take on a colour related theme, and hoping that in combination our ideas will encourage us, and perhaps you, to think about colour in new ways.

 

I hope you are all enjoying your Christmas celebrations. I'm looking forward to sharing some of our Christmas with you in a few days.