Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for December 30, 2013

How sweet , I think that’s nice of you.I always hate to take them down, usually do it on New Years Day. They are so beautiful.

our tree stayed up until little Christmas or mom’s birthday which ever came first.

We always put our tree up Christmas Eve and left it until my sister’s birthday two weeks after Christmas, so she could put her birthday presents under it. I don’t bother with a tree any more, but the Christmas decorations generally stay out until March…

It comes down my birthday Jan 3rd..\\//_

Stays up till Epiphany – how else can the 3 Wise Guys find Baby Jesus if you take down the STAR???

Lucky – my mom stopped getting a real tree once she moved in with her new clean-freak husband. :(

Ours stays up till Three Kings Day (Epiphany) or later. But we don’t put it up till right before my birthday on the 21st.

We lived in the country, and on twelfth night (Epiphany, Jan 6) all our friends brought their trees to our house. (no artificial trees in those days.) We built a big bonfire with all the trees, out on the back of the property. We had cocoa and eggnog and sang Christmas carols until the fire burned down. Official end of the Christmas season.

A friend of mine in high school always had a tree for her birthday. Which is in March.

We wait before putting tree out, then few days after Christmas put away just days before I turn older.My day is worst possible 31st.What is worst today going to doctor not feeling to well.I’m with Val and Evie ready for the tree to come down.

The tree stays up until January 16th for elder daughter’s birthday; she turns 25 in 2014. Usually add photos and things she likes to it. Kept the tree (artificial) up until July one year with an independence theme then took it down. The plan was to change the decorations monthly but interest faded.

My little artificial tree is up in the closet already. But I do miss real trees. The needles smell so good. I hope you feel better soon Kab.

Happy New Year all!

Every year I consider decorating the tree with hearts and leaving it up until Valentine’s Day. It helps if the tree is artificial.

We always put away the decorations whenever. Usually when the annoyance/guilt factors outweighed the lassitude.

I keep my tree and decorations up until Epiphany. The day after that I take them down.

One of the upsides of an fake tree, you don’t have to worry about the pine needles falling off.

When my fifth son was in high school, he didn’t want to help decorate or take down. That was my last tree. He is now 35 and his wife and children put up a big beautiful tree. I look at theirs, no work for me.

Twelfth Night.

Living Christmas Tree~~best possible alternative.

We always put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving, and we never take it down until after school starts up again in January.

This is not a problem, because we have the good kind of tree — the kind that does NOT dry out and drop needles everywhere, and we can store it in the attic and re-use it year after year after year.

We used a “live” (which is to say, cut off from its roots, i.e., dead) tree one year on my dad’s whim, when I was in junior high, and lo, it was the most horrible holiday-related notion we have ever had. The needles that actively attacked anything that got within six yards of the tree, the trunk that didn’t really fit in the stand properly, which was aggravated by the fact that the whole thing wasn’t properly symmetrical, the needles that constantly fell off the branches and got into absolutely everything so that two years later we were STILL finding them here and there, the water reservoir that we could never quite keep from going empty, no matter how many times a day we refilled it, the needles, did I mention the needles? The whole lousy experience… every single member of the family swore in unison never to have anything to do with THAT nonsense ever again.

Agreed Evie.

But… it’s only the 8th day of Christmas! How can you even think of taking the decorations down before the 12 drummers have drummed?