It is December, which everyone knows is the time to get your Christmas on. So what is it to be this year? An ironic wreath made from brussel sprouts? Oh-so-zeitgeist decorations in the shape of Perelló olive tins or Torres crisp packets? Or are we thinking a minimalist all-white theme?
Wrong, wrong and wrong again. My front door wreath – it went up two weeks ago because I’m a Christmas superfan – is huge and trad, with a tartan bow the size of a dinner plate. There are wooden nutcracker soldiers the size of toddlers by the fireplace. When I put my tree up this weekend, it may well collapse under the weight of old-fashioned round baubles.
There has been a Christmas vibe shift: let’s call it Ho-Ho-Home Alone. After all, the first family of 2025’s holiday season are Kevin and the McCallisters, from the festive movie that is on everyone’s guilty pleasure list. Laura Jackson, co-founder of the homeware marketplace Glassette and east London’s premier tastemaker, had a pre-Christmas family sleepover at a London hotel and posted that “the kids all in their dressing gowns running down the halls felt very Home Alone”. The poster for Oh. What. Fun, Michelle Pfeiffer’s new streaming-for-Christmas film, shows Pfeiffer in festive knitwear in front of a very McCallister-coded gingerbread-style suburban American mansion. The look is everywhere: we’re talking tartan pyjamas, Santa hats, stockings lined up over roaring fires. Marks & Spencer reports that candy-cane striped baubles and six packs of tinsel rosettes have been Christmas bestsellers. The vibe is cosy, but also unashamedly jolly. Forget everything you have learned about oatmeal-toned hygge chic; bring Will Ferrell in Elf levels of enthusiasm to your decorating. Let me put it this way: if you can still see your stairs, you need to drape more cedar branches around them.
“Ralph Lauren Christmas” is this year’s social media phenomenon, with 5m searches racked up on TikTok even before Halloween. This sounds like a transparent commercial play by Ralph Lauren, except that the brand itself isn’t promoting the trend and has declined to comment on it. Instead, it has been named and adopted by gen Z, who have fallen hard for a vision of December that Ralph Lauren has sold for decades.
Christmas with Ralph Lauren is like a visit to an imaginary posh grandma: lots of blankets, central heating cranked up, maybe an outing to a Nutcracker matinee or ice-skating. It is sophisticated, but not in a chilly fashion-world way – and, crucially, while it feels abundant and splendid, it is not expensive to recreate. Should you be in London and fancy a refresh on the look, there are pop-up Ralph Lauren log cabins in Sloane Square until Christmas Eve, where you can take a cookie decorating class or just buy a hotdog, but the key pieces of a Ralph Lauren Christmas do not have a designer price tag. All you need is velvet ribbon tied on to everything (easy to do, cheap as chips), good lighting (nothing unites gen Z like their hatred of the big light) and a tree (fake and/or wonky works fine once you carpet it with decorations). Plump up your scatter cushions and you are good to go.
I don’t actually need to spell out to you what this year’s fashionable Christmas looks like. It is basically the picture that comes into your head if you close your eyes and think of Christmas. And this is precisely the appeal. It channels nostalgia for a time that we almost remember, a rose-tinted glow-up of Christmases past that we see in family photo albums. It takes the emotional anchors of Christmas – family, sanctuary, abundance – and quite literally puts a bow on them. And it turns out, this is what all of us want. Boomers and gen X are tired of being shamed for not remembering the difference between gorpcore and goblincore. Millennials have finally grown out of everything having to be pink. Gen Z, whose popular culture has mostly centred on irony and cynicism, have suddenly discovered the importance of being earnest instead. To paraphrase Netflix: Everybody Wants This.
The vision of Christmas that tugs modern heartstrings the hardest was invented not in Victorian Britain, but in the US. The first Home Alone film came out in 1990; Ralph Lauren’s popped-collared preppy fashion ruled the decade, before streetwear came along in the 00s. Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You was released in 1994 and, with its glossy Coca-Cola reds and pile-it-high fairy lights, this Christmas is a version of the US timestamped not by the Maga-era culture wars but with the cheerful, have-a-nice-day mood of 90s America. In our more fractious times, the deliciously uncomplicated glamour of the era of Cindy Crawford and Steven Spielberg is what everyone wants to unwrap.
In Britain, Burberry has gone big on Christmas this year. This makes sense because Burberry shares some DNA with Ralph Lauren, standing for mainstream style rather than edgy fashion, cross-generational and proudly but inclusively British in a way that mirrors Ralph Lauren’s wholesome Americana. Burberry’s chief creative officer, Daniel Lee, has decorated the 16ft tree in the lobby of Claridge’s hotel, which was unveiled at a party where Olivia Colman did a reading of ’Twas the Night After Christmas while standing beside the hotel’s grand piano. Jennifer Saunders – firmly in character as her 1990s alter ego, Ab Fab’s Edina Monsoon – stars in Burberry’s Christmas advert, hosting a festive party for friends including Naomi Campbell (this is giving 1990s, again), as well as the actor Ncuti Gatwa and the footballer Son Heung-min. The brand’s chief marketing officer, Jonathan Kiman, told the Business of Fashion website that the film “blurs the line between fantasy and a memory you feel like you’ve already lived”.
We can’t talk about Christmas in Britain, of course, without discussing the John Lewis advert, the release of which is basically stir-up Sunday for late-stage capitalism, so we should note that this year’s version also has a 90s heart. You’ve seen it, obviously, so you know that a teenage boy transports his dad back to the dancefloors of his youth with a copy of Alison Limerick’s 1990 track Where Love Lives. The ad has had mixed reactions from those of us old enough to feel vaguely insulted at having our misspent youths repackaged as an “aren’t-old-people-adorable” message – are 1990s house bangers the new Vera Lynn? – but in sticking the needle on a 90s record, John Lewis is right on this season’s zeitgeist. Lisa Cherry, head of Christmas at John Lewis, confirms that it is “seeing that timeless, luxurious feel reminiscent of the Home Alone or Ralph Lauren Christmas vision being picked up, with a rush on traditional elements like classic candle lights for the tree”. Cute mini knitted stockings in traditional red are also on its bauble bestseller list.
Here’s the thing: joy is not beige. Christmas should not look like a conceptual art installation, or a wellness retreat for introverts. If the 90s taught us anything, it is that life is better with a soundtrack, a huge bow on everything and a healthy disregard for minimalism. So go ahead: deck your halls, your staircase, your cat. The more it looks like a Home Alone out-take, the better. Because all we really want for Christmas … is Christmas.
