Christmas Is All Around Us

We hung the swag lamp this weekend.

I found this lamp in a rental house one day. The former tenants had been gone for over a year, abandoning half their belongings for good. Among some really cool (but unfortunately molded) vintage clothing, I picked out and instantly fell in love with this amber glass swag lamp from a bygone decade. Now it’s part of my history.

A swag lamp is basically any lamp that hangs by a chain from the ceiling. It can be made of glass, wood, cloth, anything really. Even a chandelier could technically be considered a swag lamp. But the ones I love are the heavy colored glass globes in garish shapes that defy gravity in the corner of a room, looking uncomparably retro. The lamp hangs on a chain from a hook in the ceiling, and the excess chain is held up by a second hook, creating the “swag.”

I’ve heard that swag lamps were first produced in the 1950s, but became very popular in the 70s and 80s. They do tend to have a bit of a 70s feel to them (not that I’d really know), but there is something almost Victorian about them with their intricate metal accents. Being a young and therefore mostly objective lover of swag lamps, they seem to have a timeless quality to me that is not hindered by my association of swag lamps to any particular decade. I just like them.

I own two working swag lamps and two “project” swag lamps that will probably never shine light so long as I still keep them around, promising to one day fix them. I don’t know what it is about them that compels me to collect and hang these luminescent monstrosities. Perhaps because they are so different from anything you can find in the stores today. They’re not in style, but they sell for a pretty penny on Ebay. And it seems that people have a fondness for leaving them behind when they move out of our rentals. I can’t say that I blame them, because they are a pain to lug around and I’ve considered abandoning my own on more than one occasion.

Even being a foreign object in my world, the swag lamp appeals to me with some vague sense of familiarity. The colored glass, the ambient glow it casts, and the ancient look about them remind me of something that I must have forgotten. They have a strange kind of nostalgic comfort, like being back in your grandma’s house after a long time away. I can’t really put my finger on it.

I do know, however, that my swag lamps add something to my home decor that is not entirely stylish, but undeniably…quirky? peculiar? distinct?

And, it makes a really great night light.

Not that I’m still afraid of the dark, or anything.