When do you take down your Christmas decorations?

[Danmel]

I was driving in my neighborhood today and noticed that a fair number of homes still have them up. One had Christmas and Valentines day decorations up simultaneously.

Should I call the cops to check to see if some of these people are dead in their homes? When do you take down your decorations?

(I'm Jewish, so I just gouge out the wax and put the menorah back on the shelf!)

[Beaverhausen]

1. we're supposed to take them down?

:crazy:

[miss_kitty]

26. we're supposed to put them up?

:crazy:

[Cush]

2. a few days after New Years

[Padraig18]

3. December 26th.

And they don't go up until the first weekend in December, either.

:)

[Technowitch]

4. I'm Wiccan. We just burn the Yule log and be done with it. :-)

[mongo]

5. Some military families leave them up

Until there loved ones come home. They may still have their trees up with wrapped packages under them.

[BOSSHOG]

12. I served 24 years

My mother put a Christmas light in my bedroom window when I enlisted (a long time ago) and left it there and turned it on every night. My mother died about halfway through my military career, but my Dad left that light in my bedroom. When he died last year I took the candle and put it in our North Bedroom so my parents could find where we live when they check out the Cosmos. I'm contemplating the future of that candle because it has served honorably for 30+ years.

[bluedeminredstate]

20. That's very touching - -

the whole story - - but what kind of got me choked up was that you put the candle out for them to find their way to you. It was your turn for candle duty.
Your parents sound like loving people to do that for you; it's such a beautiful gesture - first your Mom, then your Dad to carry on the tradition. It sounds like you were lucky in the parents department - a gift not everyone gets.
Thanks for posting that - it was very sweet,

:)

[Debi]

6. We leave them on the trailer all year 'round..

We only change the lighted Virgin Mary to a lighted Easter Bunny in April or May.

[plcdude]

19. nice

reminds me of where I live.

[Debi]

28. Do you need any extra pink flamingos?

:shrug:

[Rabrrrrrr]

23. Do you decorate the Charger you have on blocks in the yard by

the broken washing machine?

[Debi]

30. Junior painted it day-glo red and green for the holidays

we put our tree in the washin machine so it wouldn't get needles in the shag carpet.

[Rabrrrrrr]

31. Ooh, good thinkin' about the tree!

Good place for it.

And I bet that car looks like painted day-glo red and green! Just like NASCAR!

I use one of them racin' lights they call a Christmas Tree for my Christmas Tree. But it gets left up year round cuz I got a pile of old magazines and a chevy small block engine sitting in front of it in the living room for the past 6 or 7 years, so I can't get to the light to take it down. Don't matter though - it gives good lighting to the velvet Elvis, God rest his martyr's soul.

[Debi]

34. So be in - on Elvis...

a moment of silence............................to the king.

How many horses on that block? may be able to go tradin with ya if you need four tires on the wheel. Almost new...just can't tell ya where I picked 'em up at.

I use the tree to hold my towel when I go swimmin in the above groud pool paw set up (it really is two horse troughs welded together, but it only leaks a little and the rain refills it.

You ought to come on over some night and sit in our bug tent. we used old screen from the windows Junior broke out in one of his tiffs. Just boarded up the windows, but why waste the screen?

[jilln]

7. I did it once and discovered...

that if you don't put them UP, you don't ever have to take them DOWN again! It's been working like a charm for years.

[Ronnie]

9. What you said.

...

[BOSSHOG]

8. On the 6th of January

The twelfth day of Christmas and the first day of Mardi Gras Season. That's when the Mardi Gras decorations go up. Gosh, I thought everyone knew that.

[Lavender Brown]

21. Yep, us too.

When I was little we got presents on the 6th and that was officially the end of Christmas.

[dback]

40. Nobody TOUCHES my decorations till after Epiphany

Sometimes I take them down the weekend after, sometimes I wait one more week if we're busy. And frankly, it's nobody's damn business if we do--some country radio station in the Bay Area had its hosts going around to homes and taking people's decorations down WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION the second week of January or so. Anyone tried to do that with me, they're going over the rail (we're on the second floor). Who are these busybodies? Why do they fall prey to the relentless drumbeat of the American media: "It's over! Move on! Throw it away! What's wrong with you!" (See any correlation to the Bush-Gore thing in 2000?)

I'll cut an inch of slack to people who put a real tree up right after Thanksgiving, and it's drying out and becoming a fire hazard by New Year's. But really, people, we treat Christmas in this country like bad sex--if each day could be considered a minute, then we have some sixty to ninety minutes of making out/undressing, 24 minutes of foreplay, and ONE MINUTE of the good stuff. Please!

I'm going to go for at least 12 days/minutes minimum before succumbing to the gray, debt-filled, overweight days of January.

[Tsiyu]

46. Amen, Sister.

There is this myth in parts of the South that it is bad luck to keep the tree up past New Year's day. ( Now, how could a highly "religious' person believe in bad luck? Dunno.)

So it never jibed with my Episcopalian 12 Day and beyond Extravaganza.
I used to get indignant about it, scorning the women who put up their trees on Thanksgiving. Everyone knows you don't put it up til a week before Christmas.

But now I just put mine up ASAP and keep it up until after Epiphany. I try to burn the Yule ( tree) on the appropriate Pagan date to honor those who brought us the original Candlemas.

But I have admit. I still have lights up on a fence section up front ( with the Hemlock garland looking a bit pekid.) They light up a dark section of my property but I suppose I should consider yanking the garland and redoing it in a Lenten theme....

[madinmaryland]

10. On the outside

we leave the lights on the house year round. I hate ladders, and besides if you don't light them no-one sees them.

[Burma Jones]

11. Usually on the Dr. King Holiday Weekend

Many of the Chinese folks in our neighborhood had turned them off around January 1, but switched them back on for the few days around Chinese New Year, which I thought was good. Now, they're taking them down......

[tigereye]

42. that's us

I still have a box or two sitting on the bench to take to the basement... it used to be if we got the tree out before Feb., we were doing well. ;)

[ret5hd]

13. 1977...

the year i moved from home...and i haven't put any up since.

[candy]

14. By December 28-when it's over,it's over.

[Rabrrrrrr]

24. Technically, Christmas isn't over until January 6

[SoCalDem]

15. 1999...and we never decorated again

not even a tree :)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

16. by jan 9th....but i'm leaving my tree & decos up in protest to Iraqi War..

i will take them down when * brings our children home ;)

[fit4life]

17. It depends.

If I get done running around early enough on Christmas day, I'll take them down that evening. Otherwise, I'll take them down on the 26th.

[Historic NY]

18. Didn't put any up, so there is none to take down....

I did throw the wreath away off the door in Jan, when I remembered it was still there.

[Rabrrrrrr]

22. Well, mine are still up. Been too lazy to take 'em down.

Gotta put 'em all back their little boxes and shit. Pain in the ass.

But I'm tired of the tree now, so one of these days.

I should take the advice of one of the other threads and say to myself "It's hard work." And ask myself, "Do you want to be like that War Criminal Shitknocker in the casa blanca?"

[yellowdogintexas]

35. are you trying to beat my Easter record?

You still haven't taken them down?

My fairy lights are still on my shrubs, I rather enjoy seeing them when I drive in at night. But the inside stuff is gone. I do plan to put some sort of springy wreath up with some sort of lights on it. My front door is inside an alcove, but the porch light is out on the front of the house and the alcove doesn't get much light. I found out when I put the lighted wreath in the alcove that it is much better light for the front door, so I am going to make another one that I can just change seasonally with different picks .

[Rabrrrrrr]

36. I say that lights in shrubs can stay up year round. They always look nice.

Unless they are really Christmas specific. But I like the looks of the little lights in the trees and shrubs and stuff.

The only thing I have is the Christmas tree. Part of me likes having it up; but in the last week or so, another part of me has been saying "It would be nice to have that floor space back..."

I love the idea of your seasonal wreath set. Good thinking!

[yellowdogintexas]

37. Now, the catch is will I actually get it accomplished? I am

great at thinking up this stuff and lousy at actually getting it carried out.

I wonder why


I wonder if the internets have anything to do with that?

[Rabrrrrrr]

50. the internets are totally the problem. And a certain blue, stained dress.

The last thing you want to do is take personal responsibility.

[Deep13]

25. Never put them up.

Exterior lights are tacky, wasteful and create light pollution. There are lights in the sky already if people care to look. Artifical lighting makes them difficult to see.

[donheld]

27. What christmas decorations?

[bigwillq]

29. A few days after New Year's

:hi:

[madison2000]

32. They've been up since Dec 2003

I've incorporated the tree into my master decorating scheme. :hi:

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Ron Green]

38. This weekend for sure. No lie. F'reals.

[Bouncy Ball]

39. If it were up to my husband, December 26. He sees no reason

in messing around about it.

But I leave it up until about Jan. 2 or 3. Then it's outta here.

Oh and we don't put it up until around December 4th or so.

[NoPasaran]

41. I'll let you know when it happens

[Bat Boy]

43. My avatar should answer that questiion.

'Nuff said.

[Intelligent_Designer]

44. 5th Jan or thereabouts

[shesemsmom]

45. New years Eve or Day

can't stand it any longer than that

[Hillary08]

51. New Year's Eve or Day also

Was brought up that it is bad luck to leave 'em up longer....

[shesemsmom]

52. Me too

my fi=olks always took thiers down one day or the other. Mine depends on which day I have to work. I forgot about the *luck thing*

[texas1928]

47. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO TAKE THEM DOWN!!!!

Now they tell me.

:wow:

[Doctor_J]

48. the day before the kids head back to University

[PartyPooper]

49. Just last weekend, I finally put my little artificial tree and ornaments

away! :cry:

We'll try to get them up again by Halloween this year!

:D

:hi:

[all.of.me]

53. i just composted my wreath last week, but....

.... i keep lights strung up in the house all year round. they line the top of the wall where it meets the ceiling around the whole living room/kitchen. they're light enough when you don't want really bright lights on.

my mother's neighbors used to complain that the pine bough on the lamp post was still up at easter time! they always threatened to remove it, but no one ever did.

[tibbir]

54. Don't do the Christmas thing any more

at least in so far as decorations. Christmas is the worst time of year for me because that's when my dad, an alcoholic, started doing some unspeakable things. Come January 1st of each year the weight of the world is off my shoulders because I have 11 months until the next one.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

56. I'm sorry...

Do you still see your dad? Has he gotten help?
:hug:

[tibbir]

57. No, he died years ago -

and we never worked anything out between us.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

55. I took the tree out last week

I got tired of waiting for the he-man macho types around here to do it, and it looked positively absurd. I had to use a pair of pliers to loosen the screws at the base, and I was jabbed unmercifully, but at least it got outside.