To want to take down Christmas decorations on 31stDec

Ours have come down today. We had them up for roughly a month, so I'm usually ready for them to come down and have a good clean round. We've left some battery operated fairy lights on the mantlepiece in the living room which gives it a nice hope but everything else apart from our old Christmas tree (which is going to the dump) have been packed and stored back in the loft.

Ours was all put away today. Because we were all here to do it. 30 minutes and done. Not religious, so just done when practical.

I have 4. 1 being a kitten this year and one being 4. The 4 yo has always been in and out of the tree. But the kitten decimated it. It looked like it had been left up for 20 years in an apocalypse by the time we took it down this year

It's the only time in forty odd years of cat ownership that this has happened to us. Don't know why he took such exception to it this year

@Nogaxeh agree, I don't understand why people follow any rules over this really.

I take mine down when I'm ready which is usually at least 2 weeks into Jan when it's much lighter and it doesn't feel right.
Others follow rules about 6th or royals which I think is candlemas

Ours goes down on the 5th as it's dds birthday on the 6th.

My mother had a tradition to take them down on newyears day while listening to the newyear concert from Vienna.

That's some impressive work from the cat.

Ours has survived intact in our first year with a puppy. It's a Christmas miracle!

I always leave decorations up until January 6th - it's the twelve days of Christmas.

But then I don't put up my decorations until later in December. You make up your own rules.

Bloody cat tried to preempt our planned removal of the tree on 12th night.
We've ignored his kind help and resurrected it (deliberate Christian pun)

It's still Christian for those of Christian faith.

But I agree it's been coopted by a much wider group of people. It's also a winter feast / a festival of consumerism for a large number of people and nothing really to do with Jesus (my family included).

I keep mine up till the 6th.

However I don't put the tree up till about a week before Christmas.

Totally agree with those who say it's personal choice.

As many of us have already taken them down (usual time for our house is between Christmas and NY), nothing negative happens and we all now move onto into 2025. There is obviously no right or wrong.

Ok.

I don't tell myself anything duck. I don't give a shiny shite when anyone takes their decs down. They can take them down on Christmas eve and I wouldn't tell them it was wrong or right, or early or late. Everyone does christmas their own way

You too!

Yup. You just carry on telling yourself that

I would just like to say I am neither defensive nor accusing you of anger. Nor am I angry myself. If there's past issues I am unaware of them I would to stay well out of them 😆

Not at all. Although I have been accused of such. I am cheerfully confident in my opinion and remain amused by how many people it seems to annoy.

Interesting points re. other octaves. The extension of festive decorations therefore to Candlemas and other dates also reasonable. None of which makes anything before 5 January anything other than early.

I shall continue to be accused of being angry about it. I remain entirely not angry but I'm sure that won't prevent the accusation.

It's a topic that seems to invite high levels of defensiveness.

DappledThings gets very het up about this topic.

Official for whom?

Christmastide ends on 2nd February according to many, including some Catholics and Anglo-Catholics (my C of E church is Anglo-Catholic)

Other Catholics and other sects of Christianity see Christmastide as the 12 days after Christmastide and including epiphany.

Some also use octaves which means Christmastide ends for them on 1st January with the solemnity of our virgin mother.

I've even heard some say that it ends on 13th January. I can't remember the reasoning but I'm sure it's just as justified as anyone else's.

To me, all these different dates even within churches this just strengthens the argument that it's really personal choice.

There are two traditional end points! But either way <5th Jan is early.

If you want to get technical about it Epiphany is still the end of Christmas but many churches (and people) keep decorations up to celebrate Epiphany as well which ends at Candlemas. So there are two traditional end points to Christmas decorating but 5th Jan is still the official end of Christmas.

I presume so, but certainly at Christmas it's all about Jesus and the Nativity and the choir sings traditional Christmas carols. There is a boy in her class who is Sikh or Hindu and when they had to prepare a speech about a subject they were interested in he talked about his religion and culture, and they must learn about Divali because I went to a school grandparents craft morning with her around the beginning of November and we were making things to do with Bonfire night and Divali.
But the church pastor does go to the school quite often to talk about various things and there was a church service at which the school choir sung and did readings about the Christmas story. She does go to a very predominantly white British school though, of the approximately 450 pupils there are only a handful who aren't, eg in her year of 60 throughout her time at school ( now year 6) there has only been one boy who isn't white British.

Well exactly. Even the CofE can't decide when Christmas officially ends. Probably because there's no official end of Christmas 🤣

My C of E church keeps theirs up until Candlemas on 2nd February 🤷

So if people really wanted to be pedantic they should probably be having gem up a lot longer than 6th Jan

I’m assuming your grandchild is also learning about other religions?