Taking down the decorations

In  most households today, January 7th, if Christmas decorations were up, they are now down. According to tradition, houses should be decorated over the twelve days of Christmas, but for some that means the first day, when someone’s truelove gave them a partridge in a pear tree, is the 25th December when baby Jesus was born… according to tradition! So if decorations were to be taken down, then they should be packed away on January 5th. However, some people believe that the twelfth day is January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany, and there is great debate about which is the ‘proper’ date for households to return to normal. In our house we have always taken things down and put them away on January 6th, and the Christmas tree is taken back out into the garden.

Here is one interpretation of the twelve days…

• Day 1 – 25th December, Christmas Day – celebrating the Birth of Jesus
• Day 2 – 26th December, Boxing Day, St Stephen’s Day
• Day 3 – 27th December,  St John the Apostle’s day
• Day 4 – 28th December, The Feast of the Holy Innocents – when King Herod had all baby boys killed
• Day 5  – 29th December, St Thomas à Becket’s Day – when he was killed by knights of Henry II
• Day 6  – 30th December, St Egwin of Worcester.
• Day 7 – 31st December, New Years Eve
• Day 8 – 1st January – New Year’s Day
• Day 9 – 2nd January, St. Basil’s day
• Day 10  – 3rd January, Feast of the Holy Name, when Jesus was named
• Day 11 –  4th January, Saint Simon Stylites day
• Day 12 – 5th January
• January 6th Epiphany

Another tradition, which seems to have been a much earlier one, is to take the decorations down at Candlemas, which is February 2nd, and you can find out more about that feast day here:

http://southernorderspage.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/are-you-keeping-any-christmas.html

… and here is a little verse by Robert Herrick, Ceremony upon Candlemas Eve:

Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and misletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all
Wherewith ye dress’d the Christmas hall;
That so the superstitious find
No one least branch there left behind;
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected there, maids, trust to me,
So many goblins you shall see.