Christmas Decorations: The Twelfth Night is Tonight
It’s Believed to be unlucky is they stay up after tonight
Why is it believed to be bad luck to leave the decorations up after Twelfth Night?
I researched this as I was intrigued to know… here goes…
“Many years ago it was thought that leaving the decorations up would cause a disaster. People believed that tree-spirits lived in the greenery (holy, ivy, etc) they decorated their houses with. The greenery was brought into the house to provide a safe haven for the tree-spirits during the harsh midwinter days. Once this period was over it was necessary to return the greenery back outside to release the tree-spirits into the countryside once again. Failure to do this would mean that vegetation would not be able to start growing again (spring would not return), leading to an agricultural disaster.
It was also thought that, if you left the greenery in the house, the tree-spirits would cause mischief in the house until they were released.
Today people still feel uneasy about leaving the Christmas decorations up after Twelfth Night. Despite decorations now being made of foil or paper, and even though the tree-spirits are long forgotten, the superstition still survives.”
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My opinion, just pure superstition and by a couple of days past Christmas we get fed up with them being around, they make your house look cluttered. Especially when you have small children with all their presents laying around and on top of that the decorations! Bad calmer so my partner always says! It’s an absolute joy to be putting them up and the excitement is fantastic, but just after Christmas I am always ready to take them down.
We took our Christmas decorations down on 1 January 2010 (still feels funny typing 2010! – haven’t got used to that yet).
When did you take your decorations down, and why – are you like me and just have enough of them after Christmas!
