The Holiday Decoration You Love to Hate

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We’ve all been given some odd things over  the years, right? There is that moment when you think (but don’t say), “Gosh, what on earth am I going to do with this?” This happened to me a few years ago when my hubby brought home a gift from a friend and business client. It was a little LED wire tree, and it... blinked. I don’t like things that blink. But he was tickled, so we plugged it in on our kitchen counter.

Well, it grew on me, that little tree. I straightened its branches, and the more I looked at it, the more cheerful I found it. Now, it’s one of the first things we put out every year, and I’m always a little sad to see it go back into the storage box. I guess it’s our Charlie Brown tree.

(The lights are actually bright red and green, but LEDs photograph weirdly.)

REDS, have you grown to love things you would never have chosen?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Can I talk about the decoration I DIDN’T grow to love? So, Ross in his childhood had had a contraption called “Santa’s Band” on the mantlepiece. Santa leading a whole line of marching band musicians in cheery red coats. You plugged it in and they played Christmas songs. Enchanting, right? That’s what I thought the day he, overjoyed at his good luck in finding his childhood decorating must-have, came home with santa’s band.

Dutifully, I strung Santa and the musicians atop our mantel, removing my own very tasteful display of candles twined with white fairy lights. But the Santa Band contraption looked cute enough, after I spent a half hour hiding (and eventually taping down) the multiple twisting green wires that powered it. Then we turned it on.

OMG. The cacophony. The Santa Band played at the same decibel level of jackhammers in NYC, every note high-pitched and tinny. I had to retreat to the kitchen while Ross sat in his chair beside the fireplace, happily bobbing his head to the so-called “music.” But then--

Oh no! Turns out the band members vibrate as they play! They jiggled themselves to the edge of the mantle and began to leap to their deaths, prevented from disaster only because they were all linked together with the wires I had painstakingly hidden, and which were now sagging across the lip of the mantle. It looked like a troop of identically dressed hikers carrying instruments had fallen off an alpine cliff, all roped together.

As the engineering sort of the family (really!) I was called on to fix the problem. The Santa Band members needed to be individually duct-taped into position, and THEN the wires could be hidden and taped down. A task I performed year after year after year - and then made myself scarce whenever Ross turned on the music. Which he liked to do OFTEN.

Friends, you know I loved him dearly. But the first Christmas we spent at home after his death, I took that GD Santa Band down to the Transfer Station and left it there for some other sucker. You know what’s on my mantle now? Candles and fairy lights. AND I LIKE IT.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I am not much for decorations, but can I do the gift I hate that I grew to love? So. My husband's office has a gift exchange. He is famously known (at our house) for coming home with disaster gifts. Seriously, salsa lessons. Second-hand candles. Expired candy.  ANYWAY. Last year, he came home with an apple corer. AN APPLE CORER. And ordinary apple corer, red handle, sharp jagged metal prongs.   I said to him--no way. You have to go back to the office and tell them we are not accepting this apple corer. It's stupid. What kind of a present is that? And of course, that was silly because it was a Secret Santa, and no one can  even know who gave what to whom.. But then! I tried the apple corer. And it was MAGIC. I mean, magic. It works perfectly.  I love it every way. I wash it carefully, and protect it, and  care for it.  And I don't even know who to thank.

HALLIE EPHRON: I want that apple corer. Best gift anyone ever gave me that I didn’t know I wanted was an immersion blender. I didn’t even know such a thing existed, and now I use it all the time. And in case anyone’s taking notes, I’d love those salsa lessons. I’m not a big fan of pears, and I had a relative who, year after year, sent us Harry & David pears. I turned my nose up at them until one day, I tried one of them. Who knew a pear could taste that good?

RHYS BOWEN: Hallie, my publisher always sends me Harry and David. I’m going to poach some pears tonight. But Hank, Nothing good has ever come from a secret Santa I’ve watched others open bottles of wine, lovely gift baskets and I get….someone’s used clip on earrings!
I love all my current decorations but we have an Austrian angel chimes thingy that turns to the heat of the candles. One son in law always reverses the blades so it spins backward and all the camels get sick! And one year it caught on fire! 

JENN McKINLAY: I love my apple corer, Hank. I’m on my third one, having worn out the first two on apples for Hooligans. They also work on pears! I have a theory that my publisher sends pears to keep me healthy so I can hit my deadline. LOL.

Julia, I am absolutely dying at your relationship with Ross’s Santa band. Too funny! I honestly can’t think of any decoration I’ve received that I didn’t love. I’m pretty easy in that department. Truthfully, I’m probably the giver of gifts that people have had to grow to love, as sometimes my enthusiasm for a thing (one year it was geodes) tends to leave other people perplexed! 

DEBS: Rhys, I have a whole bowl of mixed pears that are all getting ripe at once. Share you poaching recipe!

Readers, confess! What's the decoration you loved to hate, but just couldn't let go? Or, maybe, like Julia, you could!

PS Now I am looking up apple corers!