Top Ten Ways to Modernize Your Christmas
This amazing, festive, and special time of the year is your chance to live an incredible modern Christmas experience. Treat everyday like it’s Christmas – it just makes you feel good! The most wonderful time of year is your chance to capture the nostalgia, emotion, and magic from over a century of memories. You may remember the time Cabbage Patch Dolls, Barney, Animal crackers, Easy bake ovens, Hasbro toys, Lionel train sets, Huntley & Palmers, Red Ryder BB guns, tinker toys, pogo sticks, and tiddlywinks were new. Whether it’s gilt walnuts, treats, or the presents under the tree that you enjoy, here is your top ten guide to get the most of your Christmas and have a well lived modern life.
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For starters, set your mindset, attitude, and vibe to the modern dial. You need a vibrant, sculptured, aesthetic, zen-like and streamlined mindset, mixed with a child-like spirit. Naturally you can talk like Santa respond ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ to everyone, and depending on who you say it to, they may or may not be offended. Play around with your Christmas lingo and don’t be afraid to quote Schwarzenegger in Jingle All the Way. Your significant other may be inclined to “love it when you talk retro” to them. Having a modern Christmas experience is understanding the universe is in a constant state of change. Whether braving the frigid cold, standing under the mistletoe, or dreaming of flying reindeer, living modern is both an external and internal process. It’s a mindful practice to your day to day environment. It’s beautiful meets useful, where form marries function.
- Your decor should first and foremost be feng shui and minimalist. Find your next crystals, ornaments, wreaths, mid-century furniture, placemats, and lavish platinum dishes. Bonus points for a three dimensional rug. Find great options from Umbra, Porada, Henge, Flexform, Azucena, Collage Milano, Paloform, Eames, Bddw, Glas Italia, Joy de Rohan Chabot, Dix Heures Dix, Artemide, Cini and Nils, and more.Shuffle through traditional holiday catalogs from Frontgate, Dwell, Y Living, 2 Modern, Neiman Marcus, Brookstone, and Hammacher Schlemmer. Are aluminum trees and tinsel on the comeback? Don’t forget to pick out some incredible accessories (AKA bulbs and bling) to beautify, enrich, and improve your tree. You can stand out and be the talk of the party with a an adorned, contemporary, embellished Modern Christmas Tree.
- Listen to songs of the season and go through classic music through the eras. Get warmed up with It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, and fire it up with Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Jingle-Bell Rock, Let it Snow, and Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer. No Christmas can be complete without listening to the entire Alvin and the Chipmunks album, The Grinch, and Frosty the Snowman. Don’t skip the greats like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Nat King Cole, Irving Berlin, Judy Garland, and John Lennon. A Mariah Carey and Kenny G Christmas isn’t so bad either. Bonus points if you can find a good copy of it on record player, cassette, 8 track, or EDM there’s even Trap and House DJ dance mixes. We’ve come a long way since the first Christmas radio broadcast and now iHeart Radio and Spotify have solid Christmas stations.
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Come cool, clean and classic and dress in modern outfits and clothing. Shop at Goodwill or Salvation Army for that great vintage gear. Look what you can find used on Vinted, 5Mile, and OfferUp. Don’t be afraid to push the envelope with a George Jetson holiday get up. Go ahead and throw on a Santa cap with the white ball. You should be cozy too, so onesies are still fair game. There are also Christmas yoga pants so you can do your modern stretching routine and Ayurveda.
- Attend vintage Holiday events (hint Ugly Christmas sweater parties). Lace up your ice skates and head to a local ice skating rink, attend art gallery shows featuring the best holiday art work, or find cool, unique events like Charles Phoenix’s retro holiday slideshows. Break out the board games too don’t forget Candyland, Monopoly, and Scrabble.
- Bust out modern books and magazines. Take a ganderat great Christmas issues of Popular Mechanics and Readers Digest. Binge on modern books like Modern Retro Table Style, Case Study Houses. We love to (pic of the floor covered in Christmas books under the tree). Study the great pioneers of modernism movement Julius Shulman, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner, Frank Gehry and Lawrence Stoecker. Bored with books? Grab an Atari or Nintendo – if you can find one that doesn’t make you blow air on the game a hundred times before it works.
- There are so many Christmas movies now. You can take a break from Joan of Arc and The Godfather, and watch Home Alone, A Christmas Story, A Nightmare Before Christmas, A Muppets Christmas Carol, Scrooged, Elf, and Christmas Vacation. Don’t be a filthy animal and hide Bad Santa, Avid adult holiday films, and the movie Bill Goldberg stars as a killer Santa, from the children. We recommend a mash up of It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th St., A Christmas Carol, Christmas in Connecticut, and Gremlins. Watch that while listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. You could just skip everything and watch the Ultimate Christmas Movie Supercut. Although not a holiday film, it doesn’t hurt to watch Visual Acoustics to get in the modern mood. If you’re a subscriber, there’s a whole Christmas Netflix section.
- Cooking on Christmas is easy. Well isn’t all cooking easy if you just take the time to plan and shop for the right stuff? The obvious Gingerbread cookies need to be fired up with some Hershey hot chocolate and marshmallows, while you prepare this Modern meal: Champagne Cosmo, Crab & Scallion Stuffed Shrimp, Slow-Roasted Beef Tenderloin with Double-Mushroom Ragoût, Individual Savory Horseradish Bread Puddings, Lemon-Thyme Spinach, Ginger Cake Trifles with Caramelized Apples, Cranberries & Whipped Cream. For fun throw in Swiss-Squash Casserole, scallop, mashed, and sweet potatoes, cornbread biscuits & giblet gravy. Deserts should include Mince pie, Raw fig cheesecake, and Candy Canes. Don’t be afraid, if you are over 21, to spike your egg nog or mocha with a bit of whiskey. Bonus points if you can find Figgy pudding, much less even tell us what’s in it? Gettin’ figgy with it. We digress.
- Celebrate mid-century modern marvel homes and iconic structures such as legendary architecture like The Miller House or Pierre Koenig‘s Tarassoly and Mehran House, Lamel House, Bailey House, or the Lafetra House. You can even make your own smart, well-designed, prefabricated backyard Studio Shed. You can also order wine great modern wineries like O. Fournier, Argentina; Bordegas Portia, Spain; Moorilla, Austrailia; Soutbrook, Ontario, and L’And Portugal. Check out some of the newest designs from Lucid Studios and Bernard Trainor. Don’t be afraid to venture out for some caroling and touring modern museums with great history from America, China, and Japan with cultural Christmas traditions around the globe. Overall the closer you can get to a Taschan approved house you will be living a true modern holiday. Oh, and don’t forget about the World’s Largest Gingerbread house.
- Get rid of clutter. Modernism is all about clean lines. Get a great vacuum and clean your space. Eliminate extra belongings and items, give them away in an elephant. Treat your life like Masonite.
Most of all make sure you maximize your time with family, stay friendly to nature, and manage your stress levels. We may not have flying cars yet or be getting our mail by parachutes, but we do have the ability to live a well, modern life. Modern design allows you to have a garden inside your house, and encourages you to breathe easier and be connected with nature. Christmas is the time to put others needs first and give. Share the joy and may you have a jolly old modern holiday!
