Christmas is a cool-toned holiday, and nobody can tell me otherwise. Being smack dab in the middle of winter, the Christmas vibe is naturally ice blue, white and silver. Frankly, the idea of a warm-toned Christmas doesn’t make sense to me because the yellows and oranges are too easily confused with Thanksgiving and autumn. What makes Christmas special is its frosty colors that contrast beautifully with its emotional warmth.
I have come to associate Christmas with cool tones because of my fond holiday memories of going to Tahoe with my family. The fuzzy nostalgia doesn’t come from remembering the warm fireplaces in the Airbnb, but rather the frigid winter air as I gaze at the snowy blue sky.
If you think about it, snow is the best part about the Christmas season. Each unique hexagonal snowflake falling down from the sky brings a new possibility in the holiday season. Living in the Bay Area, I typically don’t see a lot of snow, so going to Tahoe and being surrounded by icy blues and whites is an experience that only comes once a year.
My best memories of Christmas are all tinted in cool tones of snow and ice. Christmas means running through a fresh blanket of snow tossing around weirdly shaped snowballs with my cousins. I am bundled in multiple thick layers of winter clothing, barely able to run fast enough to hit my cousin square on the neck with soggy clumps of snow.
Christmas means bobbing up and down on a sled as I ride with my cousin down a risky hill, one that makes my life flash before my eyes. Christmas means racing my younger brother down to the snowboarding lift, moving so fast across the icy mounds of snow that we eventually land face first together, our vision blocked in the blinding white. Each time we get a mouthful of snow, no matter how cold the weather is, we feel warm inside.
When I look up at the sky after having toppled over from laughter in the snow, a dazzling blue hits me in the eyes. It is soon accompanied by a fistful of white covering my right eye, making me realize that somebody threw snow on my face, yet again.
I also cherished the cool tones of Christmas on my daily walks to school as an elementary school kid. As I hurried through the biting cold to make it to second grade on time, everything from the grass to the bare trees to the shingled rooftops was covered in a beautiful icy cast. The cloudy blue sky gave an incredible sense of stillness to everything around me. To me, the peace cool weather brings to our otherwise busy lives is the best part of Christmas. The coolness of Christmas brings me peace.
Like sweet and sour soup or salted chocolate chips, something about the contrast of hot and cold makes Christmas special. While it might be nice to sit near the fireplace all day and enjoy its warmth, there is a whole new Christmas experience yet to be discovered. That is, coming into the house after a long day of being in the cold, plopping down on the couch and warming your nearly frostbitten fingers with a mug of hot chocolate.
Even though many holidays have a warm vibe, such as Thanksgiving with its pumpkin pies and roasted turkeys, and Lunar New Year with its glowing red lanterns and hot firecrackers, the fundamental cool tone of Christmas makes it unique.
Without the freezing winter wind on your face as you walk around Santana Row, how would you enjoy the blast of warm air as you enter The Container Store? Nothing makes you feel more alive than when you step outside on a cool December morning, feeling the temperature bite your cheeks as you shiver and sip your hot cocoa.
It doesn’t matter if there are warm aspects you associate with Christmas — the cool tones set Christmas apart from every other holiday.
