12 Days Till Christmas Countdown #5

Christmas ornaments today

It used to be that Christmas tree ornaments were simple stuff like green glass balls, colored lights, stars, snowmen, angels and other stuff associated with the holiday.  But now it seems that just about anything is passable for a tree trimming. Why is this?  

Cell phones, for instance.  They are part of everyone's life now, but does that really mean they should be a Christmas ornament?  

We use cell phones everyday, but do they really need to be Christmas ornaments?  Toys, such as bears, and blocks seem all right as ornaments, but cell phones, laptops, cameras, and iPods are just too crazy for adorning a Christmas tree, just because they are the "toys" of today.

Food ornaments.

This website looks at some of the weirdest food ornaments.  Food just seems to bizarre to decorate a tree with.   The pretzel, beer can and chips bag arrangement seems more like a Super Bowl celebration decoration than one for a Christmas tree.  And the author of the website says "Why leave Santa milk and cookies when you can leave him a value meal?" Yeah, and add a Diet Coke while you're at it.   Tacos and pizza slices are also available. 

And other bizarre ornaments have popped up. Today at Target I snapped a few photos of some ornaments.  Pardon the focus, but one time when I was shooting photos inside Target, I was told not taking pictures in the store.  So I had to shoot these quickly before possibly getting caught (I wasn't).  Anyhow, in the photo on the right we see ornaments (on the left side of the pic) shaped like pliers. Seriously?  Pliers.  I also happened to see wrench ornament behind the pliers one (wasn't able to get it in the picture, sorry).  Tools as Christmas decorations?  On the left of the photo is a checkered flag ornament.  Seems appropriate to put alongside the beer can, pretzel and chips bag for a NASCAR celebration.  Maybe this is how sports- and tools-obsessed person decorate their Christmas trees?

Above are more decorations from Target.  Pinks shoes and a purple snail.  I'm not sure just what to say about these.  Neither would ever go on a tree by me.  Just too weird.  At right are pink ballet slipper. Very pretty and elegant, but I'm not sure I'd ever put these on a Christmas tree either.

And one more shot from Target is a snowman ornament .  Snowmen are associated with Christmas, yes, but look carefully and you will see he has a USA hat, like those worn on the Fourth of July.  It's as if two holidays are being mixed here.  This has happened a bit often, such as gingerbread houses for Halloween, and candy
corn for holidays besides Halloween (in color schemes associated with each holiday).  Don't get em wrong, I rather think this ornament is cute, but can we please have one holiday theme at a time? And next to the snowman is a shamrock ornament--is it St. Patrick's day already?




Elvis may have sung about a "Blue Christmas,"  but is this what he meant?   Sure, Elvis was king of rock music, but in the in 1950s, did please have ornaments with his face on them?   And apparently putting Elvis's face on a Christmas ball wasn't enough because someone went so far as to put Elvis's face on M&M ornaments and a dancing cow one as well.  See pictures on this website. 







Can it get any worse?  Apparently.

"Jersey Shore" characters as Christmas ornaments?  Just totally awful.  And take a look at this link.

I think I've only barely scratched the surface here.   There must be other awful, weird ornaments around.  I think  sticking with the traditional angels, stars and lights is much better and simpler.  Do people have themed trees, for example, one with food ornaments, or one with TV characters, or one with tools or sports?  I have a feeling that this is not true.  So why do we need these bizarre ornaments that have very little if anything, to do with Christmas? Don' get me wrong, they're not all that bad, and some are kind of cute,  but most of them are just too weird for Christmas.