Coca-Cola Archives - Lagniappe (LAN-yap) = A little bit extra

Mystery solved! How red and green became the colors of Christmas (Garden column #1331)

Marion Owen / June 15, 2022

Every major holiday has its classic color scheme. For example, Halloween decorations are generally orange and black. As for Christmas,

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I love the way you write about your garden, gardening, and general goodness, Marion. Nourishing, on so many levels. Thank you for brightening my day. -- Leslie
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What is Lagniappe?

Lagniappe (pronounced LAN-yap) is defined as an unexpected gift given to a customer as a bonus, a compliment, or simply for good measure. Mark Twain wrote about lagniappe in Life on the Mississippi (1883). Lagnaippe is "a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word--'lagniappe'..." English speakers learned the word from French-speaking Louisianians, but they in turn had adapted it from the American Spanish word la ñapa.

Twain went on to describe how New Orleanians completed shop transactions by saying "Give me something for lagniappe," to which the shopkeeper would respond with "a bit of liquorice-root, ... a cigar or a spool of thread." It took a while for "lagniappe" to catch on throughout the country, but by the mid-20th century, New Yorkers and New Orleanians alike were familiar with this "excellent word."

So, there you have it!