Sandra Di Carlo Valdez looked at her
Christmas tree in January and felt a wave of sadness. One week into 2022 and
nearly two years into a pandemic, the tree was a source of joy; she was not
ready to take it down.
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So Valdez, 46, a nail technician and blogger in
Miami with nearly 30,000 followers on Instagram, decided to try something she
had seen on social media: She would keep the tree up but redecorate it,
swapping the ornaments for organza and the holly for hearts.
In an undated photo from Jennifer Houghton, Valentine’s Day decorations at her home. Retailers, keen to cash in on a Hallmark holiday, have been selling pink plastic trees and oversized conversation hearts to adorn them. Now they’re popping up on crafty corners of the internet. (Photo: NYTimes)
Her Christmas tree, now covered in pink and red
baubles, has become a Valentine’s tree.
Taylor Swift may leave her
Christmas lights up until
January, but online, images of evergreens (real and fake) decked in candy
hearts and pastel tinsel have been popping up well into February, mostly on
certain crafty corners of Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.
Valdez redecorates her tree using supplies from
Dollar Tree: heart clips, which she affixed to the branches; wooden hearts,
which she painted; and provisions such as pinheads and red and pink fabric that
she turned into homemade gnome ornaments.
Likewise,
Jennifer Houghton, a blogger, designer and
homemaker in Dallas, has used discount-store finds for her trees, including
oversized conversation hearts that she converts into ornaments.
When she decorated her first Valentine’s tree five
years ago, she was just delaying the inevitable.
“I was so tired
from Christmas, and I was just like, ‘Ugh, I don’t want to take this down!’”
said Houghton, 54.
This year, she has three Valentine’s trees: one
wrapped with red roses and stencils spelling out the word “love”; one dripping
with pink X’s and O’s; and one covered in those pastel conversation hearts,
with ribbons, ladders, and pink candy canes climbing its sides as well.
“With the pandemic especially, people are hungry for
anything that will bring joy into their home,” Houghton said. “We’re spending a
lot more time in our homes, so there’s this need, this want, to make our homes
as joyful as possible.”
Retailers, keen to cash in on a Hallmark holiday,
have jumped on the trend. Valentine’s ornaments are sold at Walmart and Target,
and by plenty of people on
Etsy.
A representative for Overstock.com reported that its
top-selling tree this past holiday season wasn’t green. It was pink.
Amber Dunford, a design psychologist and the style
director for Overstock, said that in times of stress, humans naturally
gravitate toward so-called transitional objects. “We’re in such an usual
situation right now, so we want that object of comfort,” she said. “Trees are
symbolic — they’re the element we gather around.”
Bobby Berk, star of “Queer Eye” and an interior
designer, said he had seen some Valentine’s trees on social media and
understood why people might want them.
“Your holiday decorations bring so much warmth to
your home and so much joy,” he said in a phone interview. “I can see why
people, especially right now, being stuck in our houses, going on year three,
want to extend that.”
He noted that a few of his friends still had
Christmas trees up in their homes. “I’m always like, ‘Girl, take it down,’” he
said. “But now I’m like, ‘Actually, no, don’t take it down, let’s just switch
it to a Valentine’s tree.’”
For the past three years, Monica Burt, an interior
designer in the greater Chicago area, has made that switch in her own home. “I
love Christmas,” she said. “I have about 10 trees a year, and it’s always sad
to take them down.”
This year, Burt, 39, has four Valentine’s trees: a
hot pink one in her family room, decorated in fuchsia and red; a white one in
an upstairs hallway that she decked in pink ornaments; and two small pink ones,
one for each of her daughters. She let them keep the trees in their bedrooms
and decorate themselves.
Sami Riccioli, who works in interior design, has
three trees this year, including an ombre one at the foot of her grand
staircase at her home in Lower Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, crafted from several
thousand faux roses.
She has no plans to take her tree down after Feb.
14. Instead, she said, she will repurpose it for St. Patrick’s Day, then
Easter, Halloween and all the way through Christmas.
“After I did that first Valentine’s tree, I said, ‘It wasn’t
just going to be Valentine’s Day,’” said Riccioli, 37. “‘I’m going to keep the
tree here and keep decorating it.’”
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