There’s nothing more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity,” wrote Vladimir Nabokov. How un-fortunate that he didn’t live long enough to experience yuletide as we know it today. Santa and Mrs. Claus toilet paper, puce-colored polypropylene trees, plaster-of-Paris reindeer. Nabokov’s exhilaration would have known no bounds.
Yet Christmas kitsch, vulgar though it may be, is a major element of the season’s charm. When else can you sheathe your legs in mistletoe-patterned tights and get away with it? When else can you toss a Jean Naté gift pack into the office grab bag or hand someone a Whitman’s Sampler without feeling tacky and tasteless?
“Christmas has become the perfect holiday for kitsch because you take something that’s already a sentimental and heavy occasion and then sort of gild it,” says Jane Stern, coauthor of The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste. “Anything that deals with religion has to be kitsch,” she adds, “because organized religion, at least in the 20th century, is quite overblown.” And kitsch, by definition, is “overblown, overromanticized, overheroized—almost Wagnerian in nature,” she says.
The famous often demonstrate a flair for holiday kitsch. Liberace, for instance, is said to have decorated his digs with eight Christmas trees, each a different color and accompanied by color-coordinated presents beneath. Another star, an actor who shall remain unnamed here, went down in kitsch history for his holiday party: He hired a choir, lit up his house like Caesar’s Palace, brought in a tree big enough for Rockefeller Center, and—in an act of undeniable kitschiness—had 200 faux gifts arranged under the tree. “That’s like inviting people to dinner and serving fake food,” says an appalled Stern.
Kitsch, of course, mustn’t be confused with its cousins in poor taste—camp and tackiness (not to mention cheesiness, schlock, and schmaltz). Each has a distinct definition during the non-holiday season. Here’s a guide: Charo, Ivana and Rip Taylor are kitschy; Divine, Cher and Bette (both Midler and Davis) are campy; Wynonna Judd, Kathie Lee Gifford and Brigitte Nielsen are tacky.
During the Christmas season, the distinctions dissolve in a sea of red and green; all forms of questionable taste are saluted and embraced. “You can’t be told what kitsch is, you’ve got to find it yourself,” says one woman, who wishes to remain anonymous because “kitsch is so personal it shouldn’t even be talked about.”
She believes that the best kitsch is spontaneous, the kind that smacks you in the face while you’re minding your own business. “If I’m on the road and I see Mary-on-the-half-shell in a front yard, that just sums it up right there,” she says. “Discovering it on your own is the best part.”
Happily—for her, anyway—“discovering it” isn’t difficult around Christmas. Homeowners in Palo Alto, Calif., for instance, take great pride in what’s known as “Christmas Tree Lane,” one section of a wealthy residential neighborhood. During the month before Christmas, Nativity scenes enliven front yards there, sleighs perch precariously on rooftops, and electrically lit trees glisten like Liz Taylor’s diamonds. The town reportedly takes its holiday decor so seriously that, when a family moves away, they’re required to leave their old accouterments for the new residents.
Consistency is a key component of kitsch.
Plastic is eternal
Whenever a group of people gather ’round molded Jell-Os and fruitcakes, the kitsch-o-meter is bound to buzz. Not that it isn’t fun to watch long-lost relatives get tanked on eggnog—that’s often a memorable event. But certain customs transcend even traditional awfulness, rituals that constitute honored entries in the lexicon of tackiness.
“We spend every Christmas Eve in my Aunt Judy’s basement,” says grad student Michael Gaucher. “It has white paneling, a red rug, a three-tone bar. We sit around and play darts and listen to Perry Como’s Christmas album and drink lots of vodka. It’s kind of like John Cheever meets Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays.”
Think that’s something? Consider the following:
♦ Toothpicks-in-a-jar
This tradition, practiced in select households, is most often observed during Advent, the four weeks leading up to Christmas. Place a jar of toothpicks next to the household Nativity scene. Whenever you do a good deed, remove a toothpick and stick it in the manger. By the time Dec. 25 rolls around, the manger should, in theory, be filled with tiny wooden sticks. Alas, this is not always the case. “We usually have more in the jar than in the manger,” reports one toothpick enthusiast.
♦ The bakery chain letter
No one seems to know where this sweet tradition originated. It involves “Herman,” a ball of yeasty dough that “comes with instructions on how to care for him,” explains student Christopher Horan. “It expands, so that by the end of the week you have enough Herman to make six new balls of dough. You’re supposed to keep one and pass five along to your friends.” He pauses. “It was the most annoying gift we ever got.”
♦ Stockings for Fido and Tabby
Animal lovers/obsessives across the country hang and fill stockings for their canine and feline friends. Prime goodies are catnip, cans of Alpo, battery-powered lighted collars. If those sound warped, remember: One person’s kitsch is another person’s sacrament.
♦ The photocopied what-we’ve-been-up-to letter
This annual infomercial, a family newsletter sent in lieu of a holiday card, chronicles the past 12 months in the family’s life. A photo is often incorporated: The happy family, wearing hues of red and green, seated before a fire, a Santa’s cap angled atop their dog’s head. As often as not, there’s a poem: “The Christmas season/Is now upon us/Our lives are terrific/Nothing can harm us/Hope you’re all doing/As great as us here/Love from the Joneses/And have a Happy New Year.” The rest of the letter is devoted to one of two things: shameless bragging (scholarships, European vacations) or minutely detailed accounts of recent ailments (post-surgery infections, broken hips).
♦ Christmas-inspired Chanukah treats
Jewish folk no longer need a Chanukah bush to be part of the crowd. Today, most major department stores carry everything needed to ensure a kitschy Chanukah: inflatable dreidels, aluminum stars of David, and electric menorahs the size of the Statue of Liberty.
Kitsch caroling
Nothing beats strolling through the mall and being accosted by three elves crooning “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Nothing, that is, except a Muzak version of the ultra-Freudian “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” or an elevator ride with the Singing Dogs’ “Jingle Bells” wafting through the shaft.
Some holiday albums and songs that, kitsch-wise, might merit a playing: The Brady Bunch Christmas Album, on which Cindy, at her lispiest, sings “Frosty the Snowman”; The Partridge Family Christmas Album; Charo’s , featuring “Donde Esta Santa Claus?”; “Santa Jaws,” a song about a shark posing as Saint Nick who, instead of handing out presents, eats people; anything by the Osmonds, especially “Old-Fashioned Christmas” and “Santa, No Chimney”; anything produced by K-Tel.
Checking the kitsch-o-meter
How to tell if you’ve just received a kitschy gift? It’s not always easy, as there are varying degrees of kitsch (and, of course, it’s largely a matter of taste—or lack of it). Lava lamps, Slinkys and Play-Doh, for example, may seem kitschy, but they’re really just silly. There are guidelines for detecting pure kitsch:
Consider the giver. Is he the type of person who actually wears Brut cologne? Does she really think palm trees covered in tinsel are stunning? Does he or she eagerly await the Denny’s Early-Bird Christmas Special?
Next, examine the places he or she shops. Do the people who work there wear little reindeer outfits? Do the other shoppers’ hairdos rival Tammy Faye Bakker’s?
If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” chances are the gift is, in fact, on the kitschy side. Another tip: the kitschiest items are the ones handed over with wide-eyed sincerity; truly kitschy gifts are given by people who are oblivious to the gifts’ tackiness.
The kitsch itch
There’s a Möbius curve of kitsch,” explains Bad Taste author Jane Stern. “Something starts off as hip, chic or trendy; then it goes out of date, then in another 10 years it becomes kitsch or camp, then in another 10 years it becomes retro, then nostalgia, then antique.”
“The thing I’ve wondered,” she continues, “is that, when we go into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, how do we know we’re not looking at the Etruscan equivalent of a bust of Elvis? Antiquity makes everything look so beautiful, but it could be a Roman whoopie cushion.”
If you want to buy and give kitschy items yourself, many can be found at the year-round Christmas shops, replete with holiday music, mangers and artificial trees. Indeed, in some parts of the country, these stores provide a spectacle so popular that tourists pass through by the busload. Why this is so remains unclear.
Stern thinks this country’s yuletide obsession (which has fueled many of Christmas’s kitschiest components) is simply about showing off. “Christmas becomes an occasion to outdo your neighbors by how many little things you can put on your lawn, how many sleighs on your roof,” she says. “It’s just a way of one-upping the guy next door.” Perhaps.
And now there’s an easy way to one-up the kitsch of the guy next door without meeting him at the mall or the holiday bazaar. Simply whip yourself up a tuna casserole, put on your plaid flannel pajamas, and recline in the La-Z-Boy. Then turn on the Home Shopping Network. Merry Kitschmas.
