Buy, buy festival aesthetics

I recently went over to my cousin’s place in Kottayam and found her apartment sparkling in Christmas decor. In the globally accepted language flattened by Meta, it should be called #christmasaesthetics. November was only 10 days old. Advent Sunday was a good 20 days away. I understand enthusiasts soaking raisins and other tidbits in rum for the cake; because earlier the better. But décor was a bit of a shocker. Her bed resembled an iced white cake, with lace all over and many tiers of cushions trimmed with red crochet and green embroidery. Two reindeers stared at me from the sideboards in surprise. Next to them were angels in river grass, one with a lyre and one with a harp.

The non-resident Malayali, like me, has just celebrated Diwali. In Bengaluru or Chennai, we have joined the neighbours in festivities. Even New York enjoyed a holiday for Diwali. And then New Yorkers and the Bangaloreans did Halloween in a reverse Uno move. My house had glass lamps and ‘urulis’ on the teapoy. Earthen diyas were lit. For very 100gm of cashew that came into the house, there was 200gm of packaging and flounce, ribbon bows and cling films. Diwali hampers came in wicker baskets, finished with net covers. Cradled in them were amaretti cookies and pre-mixes for hot chocolate drinks. Surprisingly, these might pass off for Christmas too. That’s globalisation for you.

Instagram is already pushing 10 reels a day to my feed on how to create a Christmas tree with pipe cleaners, make the perfect ribbon bow on a fork, wind fairy lights in a zigzag on nails hammered into a wall, stocking filler ideas and 101 ways to wrap cutesy gifts. A book, a bottle of wine, a tube of hand cream, money in an envelope-- the brief is different for each. In a month, I know it will be party starters and easy chicken roasts. Till last month it was to make Kaju burfi at home with just three ingredients and gulab jamun churros. Life revolves around planning, cooking, and decorating meticulously for festivals.

The 80s child in me peeps over the wall to see what Christmas looked like back then. I do not remember anything about décor except the hard paper star with perforations, inside which a lone bulb performed what Christmas star did in Bethlehem. It was definitely a great deal about food-- cake, appam, stew, biryani or pilaf. It was about ‘noyambu’ (fasting) where several of us bargained for fish at least. My mother would delegate us to cut out recipes (the Christmas specials) from Vanitha magazine and stick them to her recipe book. There was no tree, no gift exchange. Small get-togethers were never called parties. There were no return favours to plan and print. Cousins fought over cutlets and last wedge of the pudding. Invariably, several of us sulked by the end of it.

Social media and its grip over our lives is a case of overconsumption, thanks to capitalism that sees virtue in producing and consuming more. We are asked to get up and show up, drink your coffee and put on your lipstick. And then what? Buy. Buy the moisturisers, serums, Stanley cups, face wipes, hanging lamps, tea lights, scented candles and charcuterie boards. Buy them for yourself and buy them for others. Self-care it is called. Also gifting ideas. Round the year, we have excuses to consume more. As the sun sets on Diwali sale, Black Friday rises. Then there is Christmas and New Year ones. Then the EOSS (End Of Season Sale) and the EORS (End Of Reason Sale). The attention economy does not exist in vacuum. It is foisted on the legs of marketplace economics, sensorial pleasure and an irresistible one-upmanship that believes in show and tell, both.

Doing these little gigs on décor setting— placing tea lights on upturned wine glasses, making cellotape grids in ‘urulis’ to stack flowers— are women, who now have a global audience as they ‘perform’ what was otherwise chores. Chores, which were once considered boring and annoying, are now winning hearts across the globe. It also reasserts the position of women as home-makers, that is central to the capitalist pursuit where labour is divided between the man and wife. The trad wives cooking supper from scratch, the doting mother who bakes a birthday cake than order it out, the tropes are endless.  With a tripod and a clicker, women are monetising content by filming themselves knead a dough and chop for a salad delicately and demurely. It’s win for the soft girl era that lives amidst frilly cushions, moisturising souffles in fancy pots and décor that inspires aww from across the globe.

Aesthetics, whether it be for Christmas or Diwali, wedding or a birthday party, has surprisingly become a buyable, broadcastable template across the globe. It is flat and white, like the coffee. But hegemonic too, erasing local flavours and regional specifics. Christmas cushions even before an Advent Sunday signify the globalised commodification of festivals and aesthetics. Unlike the reindeers, I am not surprised.
(The writer is a career civil servant and a creator on Instagram.)