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Christmas

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Original poster

Does no-one leave their decorations up until 12th night anymore?

133 replies

MrsSeanBean · 03/01/2012 20:18

I feel like a right freak with decorations, tree etc still up. I thought the custom was to leave Christmas decorations up until 12th night. I suppose that custom, as with so many others, has vanished.

Am I the only one?!

OP posts:

Bluestocking · 05/01/2012 14:55

I think Twelfth Night is today - Christmas Day itself is the first day of Christmas. We don't take our decorations down until Twelfth Night, and it always makes me feel a bit sad. Like Neversaydie's family, my parents always put them up on Christmas Eve after we'd gone to bed, and the magic of coming downstairs to a decorated tree is something I remember very affectionately. We put them up on Christmas Eve when DS was little but now we put them up together after he gets home from the last day of school.

Labradorlover · 05/01/2012 15:50

Decorations down today, 12th night according to my gran. Bad luck to have them up longer.

Her superstitions also have me running about cleaning on Hogmanay as it is apparently very bad luck to start the new year with anything in your bins....

cerealqueen · 05/01/2012 16:08

OP, we took ours down on 2nd but left the fairly lights in the kitchen and intend to leave them there all winter. I love all the lights in and outside houses in winter, I wish it were the done thing to have them up all through January and February to brighten the cold dark nights.

headfairy · 05/01/2012 16:13

I guess it depends on your definition of 12th night I always assumed it was the Epiphany (tomorrow) but twelfth night being tonight makes more sense.

angelpuss · 05/01/2012 16:23

Mine are still up and will be until tomorrow when i've finished work for the week and DS has gone to bed.

I always make sure that everything is taken down though, because if anything is left up it has to stay there all year. Not so bad if it's a small ornament or a small festive windchime (both of which have happened in previous years!). But when it's a christmas card that has been missed on one of the bookshelves...well that just looks silly!! Still, it did stay up until the following christmas

Nat38 · 05/01/2012 16:34

Mine all came down on the 3rd!! Had enough of them!! Can put them up ages before christmas & not get fed up, but as soon as christmas is out the way I get fed up of them!!

maybenow · 05/01/2012 16:38

my tree stays up till 6th and actually i might keep it (without decoration or lights) till 9th this year as that's when council collections re-start and it's sooo windy right now i don't want it blowing down the street.

ChippyMinton · 05/01/2012 16:40

I took my last decoration - the front door wreath - down as I came home just now. It's Twelfth Night tonight isn't it?

stealthsquiggle · 05/01/2012 16:41

12th night has been officially declared to be Saturday in our house (we we are havin a 12th Night party) so ours won't come down until Sunday.

BigGirlsDontCry · 05/01/2012 17:08

Ours are still up :) we will be taking them down on Saturday .

SlubberdeBalthazar · 05/01/2012 17:15

Outside lights, door wreath and Magi & Camel (playmobil) atop the piano here.

Everything else is down as tomorrow we are hosting a proper Twelth Night party, with wassailing and throwing bread at the apple tree and the Gateaux Pithiviers with the bean and The Lord of Misrule. I would ceremonially set fire to the Christmas Tree were it not for my mother wanting it "for next year"
Did not want to risk being so drunk wassailed up that we failed to get the rest of the stuff down before the morn of the 7th.

Fellow 12th nighters, read this and weep. Whilst buying my Wassail ingredients yesterday and unmistakable whiff hit me. "That's not HOT CROSS BUNS cooking is it?" I asked the Sainsbury's lady. "Oh, yes" she gaily replied, we are making them fresh in store this year.

SlubberdeBalthazar · 05/01/2012 17:16

Oooooh but that is bad luck stealthy
[superstitious]

brainwashed · 05/01/2012 17:18

Just taken mine down.I've always thought they had to be down BEFORE the 6th.

stealthsquiggle · 05/01/2012 17:18

Slubber - "wassailing and throwing bread at the apple tree" - we always do 12th Night, but French-style with Galette des Rois and king/queen of feast - would you care to educate me ?

(and of the PM Magi/Camel - we have Santa's post office which is about to be taken upstairs before youngest 12th Night guest (aged 14mths) eats it)

FunnysInTheGarden · 05/01/2012 17:20

12th Night is today according to Google and so ours are coming down tonight or it's bad luck..........

stealthsquiggle · 05/01/2012 17:20

As for bad luck, that has been over-ridden by the fact that none of the people we want to have here for 12th Night can make it until Saturday. Our 12th Night parties generally don't attract the best of luck anyway - generally involving people getting snowed in / otherwise stuck / seriously ill - so I am determinedly thumbing my nose at superstition.

FunnysInTheGarden · 05/01/2012 17:22

oh and on the 27th of Dec our local shop was urging it's customer to 'get ahead for Easter' and was selling Easter Eggs......talk about desperate

headfairy · 05/01/2012 17:26

I'm with Stealth and tweaking the nose of madam luck - taking the decs down on Saturday. I'm working until 11pm tomorrow.

SlubberdeBalthazar · 05/01/2012 17:26

Stealthy, I have been reading up on it, we being 12th night party virgins. Wassail is mulled cider, and in some recipes mulled ale (with sherry ) that is partaken at various festivals one being 12th night.

Wassailing afaik is singing bawdy songs to scare away evil spirits and the like. You can wassail wherever you like but I believe it occurs frequently in apple orchards to keep the evil eye away from the trees, with cider soaked bread hung from or thrown at the trees. We have an apple tree so it would be rude not too.

The playmo magi are very fine and I will be sad to see them go,

stealthsquiggle · 05/01/2012 17:28

Hmm. Interesting. I shall google. We have apple trees.

SlubberdeBalthazar · 05/01/2012 17:34

Well if you have trees plural you could carry out a controlled experiment to see if the ones you sing/throw bread at have an increased crop.

musicposy · 05/01/2012 17:44

Our decorations are up still, coming down tonight.

A friend of mine is very snobby minimalist and likes to make out she is better then the rest of us. Her daughter came here the other day to play with DD. She said, "Why are your decorations still up? Mummy always takes them down on Boxing Day."

I took great pleasure in telling her it was traditional to leave them up until 12th night. She said, "When I'm a grown up, I'm going to leave them up because I like them."

CointreauVersial · 05/01/2012 17:50

I thought the rule was that they had to be down before 12th Night, but not specifically on 12th Night.

My dad has a tradition that if any Christmas decorations are missed, and are still up after 12th Night, they have to then stay up until the following Christmas. I regularly find crispy holly on top of his pictures and baubles hanging from the lights that he has failed to spot until too late.

stealthsquiggle · 05/01/2012 18:10

trees plural as in there are 2 - and they are within wassailing distance of each other, so I think the scientific validity of such an experiment would be doubtful

piratecat · 05/01/2012 18:15

oh golly

it says 12th night is NOW

mum lives in spain, said presents are coming tonight out there. tomorrow is a red day. ie bank holiday.

this means i have to get ladder from shed, and proceed to loft and get box and disrobe the tree doesn't it. i need all the luck i can get tbh!!

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