Wyn Drabble: Tinsel’s like stray festive weeds

Writer and musician Wyn Drabble says tinsel will haunt you from places you never thought of, possibly until next Christmas. Photo / NZME

It is a truth universally acknowledged that you can never get rid of weeds. Not completely. You need to accept that oxalis, paspalum, onion weed, dock, thistle, dandelion, chickweed and fathen are with you for life. (And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Jane Austen for the first half of my opening sentence.)

It is also a truth universally acknowledged that you can never get rid of stray strands of festive tinsel. If you have decorated your Christmas tree with lots of tinsel, you will never clean up all the bits that fall off. Never.

Yes, you can do a thorough sweep then vacuum but as soon as you sit down to enjoy a festive beverage, a silver glistening in a far-flung corner of the floor will catch your eye.

Your immediate thought will be, “How did I miss that one?” but prepare yourself as there will be many more sightings — possibly hundreds — to come. It’s a genuine festive nuisance and the glistening bits will be located not only on the floor but in the upholstery, in the drapes, and possibly in the surrounding countryside and neighbouring countries.

Other decorations, too, can have problems but you can usually fix them or clean them up afterwards. Strings of coloured lights, for example, can become hopelessly tangled — allow at least two hours — and random ones can expire without warning. They can also be a fire hazard.

But tinsel will remain to haunt you from places you never thought of, possibly until next Christmas when they won’t be quite so obvious amongst the 2023 Christmas droppings.

I’m sure there have been domestic tinsel fragments found and carbon-dated to the 1950s.

Despite its seemingly harmless attractiveness, tinsel can be extremely dangerous to pets, particularly cats. Our feline friends are naturally attracted to the shimmering and, after batting it about a bit, might then ingest their prey.

This linear foreign body, as it is known in veterinary circles, can cause abdominal pain and vomiting and may require surgery — not much festive fun for your beloved pussycat.

Strands of tinsel can form a tangled ball and, as this begins its journey through the intestinal tract, strands can scratch and scrape against the inner lining of the intestines causing very unpleasant (and expensive) damage.

The ailment should be called tinselitis but it probably isn’t.

Your modern tinsel is probably not poisonous but it used to be. Up until the US Food and Drug Administration intervened in the 1970s, tinsel was often made of lead. Today it is more commonly made of plastic so can be classified as hazardous and will have already found its way into the stomachs of marine life.

The earliest tinsel was apparently made of strips of real silver; not only was this quite expensive but it also lost its sheen quite quickly, not a desirable trait in tinsel (the word comes from the Old French estincele which means sparkle).

It was originally created to reflect and spread the shine of Christmas candles so disappearing sheen was far from a desirable characteristic.

There are plenty of online sites suggesting alternatives to tinsel so you may want to consider those for next year’s tree. Some involve something called haberdashery but whatever that is I shudder to think. It is no doubt fraught with its own perils.

I’ve even seen painted macaroni suggested as a Christmas tree decoration. I suppose it’s one way of using up macaroni that’s pasta its use-by date.

I’m sorry if I’ve stolen some of the sheen and glittery glamour from tinsel but it’s important to know these things.

After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that all that glisters is not gold.