Rose-tint

James thought in silence for a bit. He considering making something up, or rose-tinting the truth.

Source: wiktionary

The future is often varnished, and that may be expected, but rose-tinting the present may be equally commonplace.

Source: wiktionary

This was the heyday of street begging 'characters' when French war veterans, real or bogus, played on the public's sympathy with ghastly wounds (real or fabricated), and a later generation looked back on it nostalgically undoubtedly exaggerating and rose-tinting the reality.

Source: wiktionary

I'm rose-tinting my teenage years, for sure, but Twenge isn't the only generational-change researcher to finger the ubiquitous smartphone for contributing to higher rates of teen depression and anxiety.

Source: wiktionary