Last month, TikTok user @ecktherineking sparked a conversation about Christmas and holiday season icons. She theorized that the female frontal lobe is not fully developed until a woman picks her own personal Christmas icon. Ecktherineking submits that her icon is small gnomes while her mothers is snowmen. My own mom, shoutout Margo, is vintage ceramics. My grandma, shoutout Anne, is Santa. The original TikTok video gained 5 million views and has amassed 28 thousand comments. Most of these comments are from other women sharing their own icons. I decided to look through all of these comments and found 26 icons that kept repeating. I have now sorted them into 5 handy categories so that you can find your own Christmas icons.
The first category is simple, it’s the classics. These are Christmas icons that you see everywhere, the historic ones even. There are 7 icons in this category. The classics are:Â
–Nutcrackers: Plain and simple.
–Reindeer: Specifically reindeer who do not have a persona attached to them. Maybe even the light up ones that sit on at least one person’s lawn in every neighborhood.
–The Christmas Villages: Big and small.
–The Little Red Truck Hauling a Tree: For my farmers near and far.
–Santa: This includes the classic one, the colorful versions, the vintage, and even the bespoke. It felt too iconic to put into the characters category.Â
–Angels: Gorgeous and classy.
The second category is a little different, a little out of the box. It is nature. Think of these ones as the cottagecore options. These icons are for the girlies who love the wilderness and want to bring it into their Christmas season. There are 8 in this one.
–Mice: for those who take some inspiration from The Nutcracker.
–Penguins: This falls in line with snowmen, fun little wintery icons.
–Woodland Creatures: For all my lovers of little guys, denominational and not.
–Snowflakes: I separated this from snowmen because the flakes feel more out of the box (I love this one btw).
–Foliage: Holly, tree, the works.Â
–Polar Bears: Again, in the same vein as snowmen.Â
–Stars: I was told that this was a crazy pick, but I think a starry Christmas is an admirable aesthetic (if you have it, call me).Â
–Birds: This one I believe is largely inspired by those little holiday birds that Target sells, but it speaks to me anyway.Â
The third category is for girls who love to bring some familiar faces into their Christmas aesthetic. This one is more my tacky Christmas girlies, you all deserve the world. This category is the characters. The character has 4 strong icons in it.Â
–Rudolph: Second to Santa, Rudolph is the most prominent character of the Christmas season. The stop-motion movie hates to see me coming. This might be my Christmas icon, but I have time before I have to pick.Â
–Grinch: For my antisocial queens. The Grinch is also a sustainable icon and we love him for it.Â
–Mickey/Disney: This is for my Disney adults (HC Prov exec Christina) in the room. Also maybe my Floridians.Â
–Gnomes: I know that this isn’t a specific character, but if you know you know.Â
The fourth category is for my foodies of the world. This category is small but mighty. It is the edibles. The edibles stand tall at 3 icons.Â
–Gingerbread: The men, the houses, the scent. As a girl who decorated houses every year until like two years ago, this one speaks to me as well.Â
–Dried Fruit: Maybe the people who love this category like really lovely scents.Â
–Peppermint/Candy: This is my sister’s icon. A multifaceted icon.Â
The fifth and final category is broad but catches a lot of different Christmas aesthetics. The final category is the decor. This is for the girls whose entire aesthetic revolves around something decorations in the house. The decor is like the catch-all net of Christmas icon categories. There are only 4 in this category, but I like it anyway.Â
–Themed Blanket/Pillows: This is the person whose house is just the coziest ever during the holiday season.Â
–Vintage Ceramics: Dishes, ceramic trees, statuettes. All of it. This is a HC Prov icon. And also my Moms.Â
–Bell/Ribbons: For the ones who like to decorate everything like decorations on a sleigh. Slay. –
Holiday Plaid: Me and my sister were plaid Christmas dress girls. So I guess it is for our younger selves.
I hope you found your Christmas icon before this holiday season is in full swing. Happy Holidays from Her Campus Providence!