Let's be honest right off the bat. Only a small fraction of the shit you "pin" actually makes an appearance in your real life. Those runway dresses, that Martha Stewart craft room with the organized detail only a serial killer could recreate -- and let's not forget the food porn. All of our recipes are pinned to a board called "I'll Never Make This."
But nonetheless, a girl (or boy) can daydream (although if we're still aboard this honesty train, let's admit it: Pinterest's main demographic is stay-at-home wives who treat their undiagnosed psychological disorders with white wine and shopping).
And in the daydreamy season of the holidays where we all tend to lose sight of what's important, or, rather, realistic, Pinterest is back in full effect, sending us images of what couldn't, and sometimes shouldn't, ever be.
Here are five Pinterest trends to avoid at all costs.
See Also: Holy Pumpkin Spice, Look at These Gingerbread Houses Three Holiday Liqueurs You Can Make at Home
____ Nog
Blame it on a short attention span or the inability to be satisfied, but egg nog was apparently in need of a remodel. This creamy holiday beverage, which can only be enjoyed by some (if any) once a year, has become old hat in the Pinterest realm. Now the egg in nog has been substituted for younger, more trendy ingredients like pumpkin, soy, peppermint, and- dear God, is that a blue Hawaiian egg nog?
Way to take a sitcom that only half us liked to begin with and then create far too many spin offs with it. Nog it off, people. Nog. It. Off.
We're burnt out on cookies. (Did we really just say that?)
It's safe to say that Pinterest is not conducive to dieters and diabetics. And if ever there was a worse time to go browsing through virtual boards, it's during the holidays. There's candy and cupcakes, and cookies -- cookies as far as the eye can see and the finger can scroll. Cookies are served as drink wedges, coasters, and then turned into building materials to assemble even large cookies.
And now that Pinterest delivers cookies with uncanny imitations of snow globes, Christmas trees, and housing developments, We're going to make the unfortunate assumption that everything this holiday season is edible. Everything.
Just put a mason jar on it.
It's high times for the Ball and Kerr corporations. Thanks to Pinterest, everything now comes in, on, or around a mason jar: mason jar coozies, mason jar snow globes, mason jar candles, mason jar cocktails, mason jar pies. We can't wait till Hollywood produces Mason Jarhead, a true story about a social network based on crafting.
And while we can't pass up a cute mason jar casserole, we can draw the line at a mason jar cookie mix. You mean you put all our cookie ingredients into a jar? That's cute. You know what's even cuter? Just giving us the actual cookies, you lazy bastard.
Healthy Christmas
Remember when carrots used to just serve as snacks for Santa's reindeer? Now they're the base for broccoli Christmas trees and the arms on cauliflower snowmen on your plate. As much as we love are okay with eating healthy, this isn't what the holidays are about.
The holidays about partaking in things that are bad for you: drinking high-calorie cocktails, eating copious amounts of sugar, and caroling (note: if you've hit "experimenting with 'snowball' crack cocaine," you've gone too far with the whole holiday indulgence thing).
Non-edible gingerbread houses? What the gum drops?!
We'll own up to the fact that we're not exactly Frank Lloyd Wright when it comes to designing gingerbread houses. Our graham cracker roof cabins complete with asymmetrical M&M shingles, pale in comparison to the national monuments and historic castles assembled by pastry professionals. But that doesn't mean we throw in the frosting towel and call it quits.
Or does it?
There seems to be a prevalence of construction paper cut outs and three-dimensional cardboard models taking the place of a once beloved holiday tradition on Pinterest. We only hope that these paper productions are merely the blue prints for actual gingerbread houses, made out of actual food and frosting- half of which will be eaten during their construction.
