Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter

The Antidote to Novelty

There are lots of novelty items for sale at this time of year: Reindeer socks, Santa mugs, light-up earrings, candy-cane pens, “happy challah-days” dishtowels. They’re the gifts most likely to end up in the donation bag (or the trash). They’re often cheap, but of course, novelty is costly: whether you are talking about “novelty items” or just new stuff, it all has costs, financial, environmental and space-wise.

When I searched online for antonyms for novelty, they were so negative: banal, stale, common. There’s nothing wrong with newness, except newness for newness’ sake. Perhaps the antidote to novelty is nostalgia, tradition, patina. Things that are novel are new and shiny; things that have been used over generations have a patina of age.

In many ways, the holidays are a time when tradition reigns, and there is comfort and even nostalgia in using the same dishes and decorations. When I was a kid, my mother threw a big New Year’s Eve party every year, and every year she wore the same white, satin hostess pajamas. I’m sure they were new once, but they were also fabulous, yet practical, and part of a tradition that was wonderful to me.

When you have a shared experience that becomes a tradition, whether it’s the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree or making a gingerbread house, it isn’t just about seeing the tree or making the house, it is about a communal remembering, and maybe getting better at it.

This holiday season, resist the novelty items, save the earth, your closet and your wallet. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you can buy less but better and do the same things you did last year and savor them more.