Should you be taking your Christmas decorations down today? Or do you have until tomorrow?
Because one of them is Twelfth Night, and according to a British tradition, that’s when the tree and tinsel and baubles should be taken down, and either packed away for another year or recycled.
(You do recycle your tree don’t you? Good. Oh, and good luck with the needles.)
Most people in Britain, and certainly the Church of England, say that Twelfth Night is January 5. That depends on Christmas day being the first day of Christmas, which would seem logical.
Some, radicals, believe that actually December 26 is the first day of Christmastide, and therefore the night of the 12th day is on January 6.
Whichever you choose, now we tend to say it’s unlucky to keep up the decorations after that.
And truth be told – they might be looking a bit bedraggled. And not really the thing in the cold light of a January return to work, a new diet, and some rigorous resolutions.
(Although, if you really can’t be bothered, the tradition originally meant that Brits kept up their sprigs of holly and ivy and mistletoe until Candlemas on February 2. Tell your visitors that if they raise an eyebrow because the paperchains are still up next week.)
What everyone in the Christian tradition does agree on is that January 6 is Epiphany - when the Kings (or Wise Men) arrived in Bethlehem with gifts for the infant Jesus.
It’s still celebrated in many countries, with children in Spain, for example, getting their gifts on that date.
And if you can’t bear to finally pack away Christmas, in some parts of Britain, where they like the old Julian calendar better than this new-fangled Gregorian nonsense, Twelfth Night is January 17.
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