Christmas Decoration

Definition:

“Christmas decorations” are symbols, such as ornaments, lights, and other items used to adorn homes, public spaces, and sometimes people, during the Christmas season.

Etymology:

The word “Christmas” comes from Old English “Cristes mæsse,” meaning “Christ’s Mass,” and “decoration” from the Latin “decorare,” meaning “to adorn.”

Description:

Most people who celebrate Christmas use decorations to symbolize their participation in the activity. This often includes buying a Christmas tree, Christmas lights, and other decorations, many of which have rules about when and where they should be put up. A lot of Christians, out of fear of being judged by neighbors, strictly follow these societal rules. As so many Christians love looking into the windows of their neighbors to judge them, despite Christianity strictly forbidding judging others.

Symbolism:

Christmas decorations are ignorance symbols. When decorating the house with Christmas decorations, one is signaling to home invaders that one is gullible, and therefore an easy target.

In the movie “Home Alone” (1990), there’s a scene where the two bumbling burglars, Harry and Marv, also known as “The Wet Bandits,” are sitting in a van at night in a rich neighborhood. Harry has been observing the neighborhood and is demonstrating to Marv that the households are such routine people that he can predict with extreme accuracy when the people in the different houses will turn on their Christmas lights. This emphasizes how Christmas lights are, in his view, ignorance symbols, signaling to home invaders that the residents are gullible and therefore easy targets. Click to watch the video clip.

In the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993), in the musical scene named “Jack’s Obsession,” the main character Jack Skellington is having an obsession about figuring out the meaning of Christmas.

Something’s here I’m not quite getting.
Though I try, I keep forgetting.
Like a memory long since past.
Here in an instant, gone in a flash.
What does it mean? What does it mean?
In this little bric-a-brac, a secret’s waiting to be cracked.
These dolls and toys confuse me, so confound it all, I love it though.
Simple objects, nothing more, but something’s hidden through a door.
Though I do not have the key.
Something’s there, I cannot see.
What does it mean? What does it mean?
What does mean? Hmm…

Just as Jack is singing “In this little bric-a-brac, a secret’s waiting to be cracked,” he is showing only one eye as he looks into a bowl with a toy fire truck floating in water, symbolizing the secret of a lie and him using his intuition as he tries to figure out the hidden symbolism. Click to watch the video clip.

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