Are your holidays over?

[Claire]

Today (new year's day) we have a lunch date, and probably people dropping over later in the afternoon.

But in my community we take the 12th night as the last of the holidays, and this year it falls on Friday, which is when we all meet for drinks at our favorite "3rd place" anyway. So it won't feel like it's over 'til after Jan 6th.

We live in a small old tourist town, and those of us who actually live in town (there are some wealthy enclaves, gated communities, outside of town) tend to come alive after the tourists leave.

 

[Katie H]

Similarly, here, Claire. None of our decorations come down, nor does our celebrating end until Epiphany, which is January 6th. From Christmas Day until that day, we take things very slowly and relish in the beauty of the season.

I particularly enjoy doing our holiday this way because everything seems so hectic before Christmas. As a result, our tradition is to never have our tree up before Christmas Eve. It's usually set up and decorated early that day. There always seemed to be too much going on in years past, especially when all the children were still at home to try to "stop and smell the Christmas tree" before Christmas Eve.

Now that it's just the two of us, I so delight in spending our evenings with all the lights off, except the tree, listening to soft Christmas music and simply "watching" the tree. I find it tremendously relaxing. In a few days it will all be gone until next year.

 

[Andy M.]

The decorations are coming down today and our holidays are over.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Holidays are over. On to the next chapter.

 

[Addie]

Holidays are over. Next is Easter.

 

[babetoo]

christmas is over when my tree gets banished into the spare shower stall. i store it decorated standing in the stall. makes putting it up a no brainer. guess the holidays will be over when i do that.

 

[joesfolk]

I think our holidays are over although with DH it's hard to tell. If it were just me I would take the tree down on New Year's Day (today) and happily start looking forward to recieving seed catalogs til spring. But DH likes to leave the tree up for weeks and weeks (he also wants it put up on Thanksgiving weekend.) But this year I will be able to put stuff away a little at a time instead of all at once as in years past. (Man, I love having an attic!) So I think I can ease DH into the whole getting done with Christmas thing. The funny thing is that he is not really much interested in the holiday. I'm the one that goes crazy with the decorating, gift wrapping and baking. You would think he would be happy to get everything put away for another year...but noooo. Thankfully this year because of an incoming storm I convinced him that we should take down the outside decorations and get them stored for the season just so we don't have to do it after the snow gets here. Most years there is already a ton of snow by now so he is happy to leave the lights up til March or until I nag him enough to make it worth his while to take them down. Don't get me wrong, he's not lazy just hates this particular job and doesn't mind if the neighbors think we are strange for keeping the lights up for so long. So, starting Tuesday when he goes back to work the inside decorations will slowly start to disappear. Then, Christmas will be over.

 

[Addie]

Just start at the back of the tree. He will never notice. I like your thinking.