Item: 1 red lava lamp

The lava lamp has little silver sparkles in it, which is what makes it look festive and is why I have it, because while I can appreciate the slow moodiness of lava lamps in general I wouldn't have ordinarily wanted to have one in my house.

The problem with it is that it doesn't go with anything else I have.  The look of just about everything in my house is either rustic-log-cabinish or old-fashioned-antiquey or country-cottage-esque (did you like the artistic adjectives I just coined there?).  The '70s funky vibe is not my style. Thus, this lamp does not seem to fit anywhere.  It looks sort of like a junky remnant, no matter where I put it, when it's just sitting there switched off.

But if it's nighttime and it's on, glowing and sparkling in the corner, it's the one thing that saves the room from being too predictable, too stuck in the past.  There's a lesson in this somewhere, probably.