Having an Epiphany.

[captainsblog]

The War on Christmas is over. 2013 won, as the New Year always does. I came home from an early-out, late-in day to see that Eleanor had stripped the tree bare, boxed up most of the ornaments, and left a note asking me only to bring up more boxes so she could finish the job later in the week.

Ha.

By the time she got out of her own late-in, late-out workday, our artificial tree was back in its coffin, and all of the ornament boxes were back in their cellar homes (save a few oddities we missed- you always miss some).  Clearly, her note was a challenge to Gagnon, world champeen tree demoisheir, to finish the job.

There are various schools of thought about when this can/should be done.  Growing up on my side of the family, the tree was always decorated late in the pre-Christmas rush, but it generally stayed up until my father's  birthday, which happened to be January 6th, aka Epiphany. Later in life, I realized this was part of his emphasizing his story over the Christmas story, and for most of Emily's life, we've made it a point to have the house de-Nativitied in time for her January 3rd birthday, which was yesterday.

Funny thing, though. I visited their apartment early yesterday afternoon, and there was their tree, still lit and decorated as brightly as ever. Turns out she really wanted to extend the observance into her birthday recognition, even after we'd tried so hard to distinguish one from the other.

It seemed right, given that it was her choice, not my overbearing father's. And meanwhile, our house is cleaner and more spacious. I will still recognize Epiphany on Sunday, but the trappings of it will be in church, not in our living room.

Comments

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

I was going to take ours down today, but herself isn't quite up to it and doesn't trust me not to leave half of the ornaments on it as I push it out to the curb.

Tomorrow...

Unless I want to wait for the actual arrival of the magi, which is anywhere up to two years after the birth, according to Matthew's gospel.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the danger in making the Magi mad if you strip things too soon:

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Goldschlager, Frankenberry, and Myrth?

[throbinson.livejournal.com]

In my former life, we put the tree up fairly late (mid-December) and generally took it down in earlyish January.

My husband adheres to very strict timetables and rules for such things. Now we decorate on Thanksgiving Day (but only AFTER the Macy's parade, when Santa Claus officially ushers in the Christmas season). And everything comes down on New Years' Day.

This year we didn't quite get into the swing of things completely. For one thing, the holidays were dampened by my father-in-law's death earlier last year. We put up a 6' tree, then took it down, then put up a tabletop tree... but neither ever got decorated. The rest of the house was adorned, though, with the Santas on the mantlepiece and the nutcracker collection on top of the china cabinet, candles in the windows, and the kissing ball hung between the living and dining rooms.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

I really don't mind How Long things go after (well, other than the one neighbor that had a snowman display blinking "HO" "HO" "HO" on his driveway- possibly shut down under our local anti-prostitution laws;). Some of the displays are generically wintry enough to still look pretty and timely.

No, it's the Summertime Creep that gives me the willies. Stores laying in full-on Christmas displays in August, and radio stations going to 24/7 sleighbell in early November. On the other hand, I heard this year that a local Tarjay was switching over to Easter merchandise even before the Winter Solstice, so maybe it's all just a different universe they reside in.