Better red.

A house I occasionally pass while walking one dog or the other always does a nice display for the holidays. But this year they tried something I think might be a little off the mark. Among other decorations, they replaced the bulbs in the porch lights with red lightbulbs. I see a few people do that, often one green and one red. I kind of wish this family had as well.

I know my phone's camera isn't the best -- it's the iPhone model Tim Cook calls the "Freelance Editor Special" -- so it doesn't always do colors well. Here, though, I think it rendered the bulbs right. Is it just me, or does this look kinda... off?

The color looks pretty orangey to me, although definitely a shade of red. I immediately thought of Chinese New Year. What do you think?

Picture stolen from Mental Floss, because I have no budget.

But I did not want to be unfair, so I consulted the experts. No, not Pantone; I mean Crayola, silly. Here's two samples of Crayolas I found, one on their site, the other in a book.

You see, the Chinese Red is brighter, with more yellow in it. I do think it matches the bows on my neighbor's large wreaths, but against the green wreaths the red looks more Christmassy.

But wait! I consulted the color experts at Sherwin-Williams, and while they have no Christmas red, they do have this:

Whaaaaa??? That looks almost exactly like Crayola's Christmas Red. Which is not as Christmassy as Cincinnati Red.

What is going on here?

Here's an interesting info bit you've probably heard: Coca-Cola, who did not invent Santa, did make certain changes to our friend Kris Kringle that have stuck with him down through the years. They did not put him in the red coat, but they made sure that the shade of red worn by Santa matches the shade of red on the Coke packaging. And that may have a lot to do with what people like me think of as a "Christmas red."

If that first picture is a fair color reproduction, then Coke's red has gotten less orangey through the years, and so has Santa's coat. And the red on the first Santa's coat is similar to the red on those lightbulbs.

So it's clear that I shouldn't go throwing snowballs at other people's decorations. I'm always happy when anyone go to the trouble to decorate the outside of the house for Christmas. We decorate inside the house for family and guests, but outside decorations are for strangers to enjoy as well. And we are obliged to welcome the stranger.

I will thus think of the lightbulbs of the family in question as belonging to the classic Haddon Sundblom tradition, and not Chinese New Year. Although if they're still up on February 5 I may rescind that.