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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Taking down your decorations
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ardmacha
Shipmate
# 16499
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Posted
I can remember hearing - many years ago - and even last week, that it was "bad luck" not to take your Christmas decorations down on the evening of the 6th Epiphany (which didn't give the Kings fair play). Does anyone know where this came from ? I saw something about it which said that after the 18th c. to keep up your decorations would be a sign of refusing the New Calendar and that you were a secret follower of the old calendar and would be keeping them up until 18th January, Old style epiphany, or even until Candlemass. The old Candlemas Eve carol by Herrick said "Down with the rosemary and bays,Down with the mistletoe,Instead of holly now upraise the greener box for show".
Posts: 56 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2011
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ardmacha:
I can remember hearing - many years ago - and even last week, that it was "bad luck" not to take your Christmas decorations down on the evening of the 6th Epiphany (which didn't give the Kings fair play). Does anyone know where this came from ? I saw something about it which said that after the 18th c. to keep up your decorations would be a sign of refusing the New Calendar and that you were a secret follower of the old calendar and would be keeping them up until 18th January, Old style epiphany, or even until Candlemass. The old Candlemas Eve carol by Herrick said "Down with the rosemary and bays,Down with the mistletoe,Instead of holly now upraise the greener box for show".
I was told emphatically as a child that they must come down on the evening of the 5th January, which is correctly Twelfth Night and not the 6th, which is Epiphany. The answer to the childish question that if you count the days from 25th to 5th you only get 11, is that Christmas Eve is the first night. I was also told emphatically that it was bad luck not to, but have never heard any explanation why, apart from the assumption that they are 'Christmas Decorations', and therefore must be down before the end of Christmas.
You also weren't supposed in those far off times to put your decorations up until Christmas Eve, but even in those days most people did put them up earlier, though not as early as now.
I can remember as a small child being taken to a Carol Service that was the weekend after Christmas, and not before.
[ 13. January 2014, 11:16: Message edited by: Enoch ]
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Many people in my part of the Netherlands take the decorations down before the year ends. I think this is a way of the Protestants wanting to distinguish themselves from the Catholics in the South, who keep them up until Epiphany.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Cathscats
Shipmate
# 17827
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Posted
Carol service after Christmas? I do them every year - sometimes before as well as I serve several places!
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"...damp hands and theological doubts - the two always seem to go together..." (O. Douglas, "The Setons")
Posts: 176 | From: Central Highlands | Registered: Sep 2013
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BulldogSacristan
Shipmate
# 11239
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I was told emphatically as a child that they must come down on the evening of the 5th January, which is correctly Twelfth Night and not the 6th, which is Epiphany. The answer to the childish question that if you count the days from 25th to 5th you only get 11, is that Christmas Eve is the first night.
I think you'll find that it is indeed 12 days from the 25th to the 5th if you count.
Posts: 197 | From: Boston, Massachusetts | Registered: Apr 2006
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I am not sure whether we always took down decorations on the eve of Jan. 5th because it was the correct day to do so, or whether it was because the next day was my mother's birthday and she needed room to put up all her cards. But one thing puzzles me - if people take down their decorations on Jan. 5th, presumably they take their nativity crib set down at the same time, when the Wise Men haven't even arrived yet?!
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Wm Dewy
Shipmate
# 16712
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Posted
Normal time to take Christmas decorations down is between Epiphany and the Baptism of Jesus.
It's not bad luck to have the decorations up until after Candlemas. Candlemas is such a liturgical post script to Christmas it seems really okay to leave the greenery around.
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"And harmoniums and barrel - organs be miserable--what shall I call 'em ? - miserable machines for such a divine thing as music!"
Posts: 216 | From: Indiana USA | Registered: Oct 2011
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
I'd never heard of bad luck, although if you keep your tree up past Epiphany around here you miss out on the city's free tree pickup and have to cut and bunch the branches yourself.
We do have a peculiar tradition of leaving the city light displays out until the end of January. There is an annual cattle show in January, and the tradition is that you leave the lights out as a welcome to the cowboys who come in for the show.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ardmacha:
I can remember hearing - many years ago - and even last week, that it was "bad luck" not to take your Christmas decorations down on the evening of the 6th Epiphany (which didn't give the Kings fair play). Does anyone know where this came from ?
As I recall it the bad luck is strictly limited: "bad luck all year" was always the threat in my (scottish) youth. I imagine it was just a bit of social control.
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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ardmacha
Shipmate
# 16499
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Posted
I wish we could find the "reason" behind it all. It does seem strange that the poor kings do so badly in the Crib (or the Epiphany House, found in some churches, with an older Boy Jesus). Thanks for all the comments.
Posts: 56 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2011
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aig
Shipmate
# 429
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Posted
Cards down January 5th, but crib stays until Candlemas. So the kings are not forgotten...
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That's not how we do it here.......
Posts: 464 | From: the middle bit at the bottom slightly to the right | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Usually before the tree dries out to shed all it's needles and approximately the day the 12 drummers attend.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Ceremoniar
Shipmate
# 13596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Many people in my part of the Netherlands take the decorations down before the year ends. I think this is a way of the Protestants wanting to distinguish themselves from the Catholics in the South, who keep them up until Epiphany.
The same situation prevails where I live in the predominantly Protestant Southern U.S., where Catholics are few in number (although these are Evangelical Protestants, not the more mainline ones that I would normally associate with the Netherlands). I don't think that it is or was so much a conscious attempt to distinguish themselves from Catholics, as it is a result of having little or no liturgical awareness. Without a Church kalendar that underscores sacred seasons and times, one becomes much easier prey to the secular interests, and eventually follows their lead, without even realizing it.
Posts: 1240 | From: U.S. | Registered: Apr 2008
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Clotilde
Shipmate
# 17600
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Posted
I still keep finding a decoration or two and its such a bore as we put the decorations back in the attic a fortnight ago.
Ah well! ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
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A witness of female resistance
Posts: 159 | From: A man's world | Registered: Mar 2013
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Gwalchmai
Shipmate
# 17802
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Posted
We take our decorations down on 6th January. I had never heard that the correct day is 5th January until last week when someone mentioned it to me.
But we do keep our crib figures out - moving the kings to centre stage and sending the shepherds back to abide in their fields at the side.
Meanwhile, at church we are keeping Christmastide through until Candlemas. Last Sunday (Epiphany 1), for example, we sang The First Nowell. And it does have the advantage that we sing a couple of verses of Angels from the Realms of Glory as the Gloria rather than the now dated "modern" words of the Gloria in Common Worship.
Posts: 133 | From: England | Registered: Aug 2013
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Clotilde
Shipmate
# 17600
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Posted
A friend points me to this poem from the seventeenth century by Robert Herrick:
quote:
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.
Rather suggesting that for Herrick the decorations stayed up until Candlemas Eve...
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A witness of female resistance
Posts: 159 | From: A man's world | Registered: Mar 2013
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