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I personally would say to leave the tree up all year round. But then I'm lazy.

LOL! I think last year mine was up until at least March. We also had a 6-candle advent wreath (from a very latinized byzantine parish we used to attend) that didn't go down until, I don't know, September?

Tammy

BUT...

January 6th is Christmas Eve...

Followed by twelve more days of Christmas.

Better get an artificial tree!

Dear Still Small Voice,

Actually, spiders are good luck in the East Slavic tradition . . .

The angel hair on Christmas trees represents . . . cob webs! Spiders are never killed in the home as well.

This is because of the legend that spiders covered the Christ Child with their webs in an effort to keep Him warm!

I leave spiders alone and we had a gigantic one hanging from near our front door for the longest time. I called him "Felix" after Pope St Felix I, the patron saint of spiders (he was saved from death at the hands of Roman soldiers - no relation to me - by a spider who quickly spun a web across an opening in a wall where he was hiding, St Felix never allowed anyone to hit a spider in his presence and was covered over by cobwebs . . .).

You might say I'm a kind of "spider-man. . . "

Alex

Dear Friends,

They say it's bad luck to leave the tree up after Theophany.

But Patriarch Lubomyr said, last year, that Christmas trees aren't our tradition and we should replace them with the decorated wheat-sheaf.

Yeah, right . . .

Alex

Dear Alex,

Thanks for the spider news. It is always good to be able to find a blessing in the mundane. If your words are accurate, then with the multitudes of spiders we entertained, perhaps we received multitudes of blessings.

Blessings to you as well,

Tammy

I've got a neighbor who has a big picture window that faces the street. She loves Christmas and her tree so much that she had a special closet built in her living room behind the sofa in which to store her decorated, artificial tree. She simply opens the double doors, slides it out, and plugs it in. The tree is a tall, wide, beautiful thing. It's been the focal point of the neighborhood for the past 25+ Christmases that we have lived here. Her tree is out the day after Thanksgiving and is out until at least the end of January, often longer. She just loves Christmas and doesn't like it to be over.

The tree really lifts one's spirits in the gloom of January around here.

As for our own custom, I don't like mine up before the Third Sunday of Advent and want it up until after the Christmas celebration of the Armenians on January 19th. That way we can show that Christians may have a multiplicity of customs surrounding the Birth of Christ, but we are all one in His Family.

BOB

We usually take our tree and all of the decorations, lights, etc. down after the Feast of the Epiphany but this year Epiphany was celebrated at our parish on Sunday, so we took our tree down Monday.

My mother was born in Germany where her family always waited until Epiphany - January 6th. She would not put the Magi figurines in our nativity scene until after Christmas although she always got the shepherds displayed before Christmas.

Yes, I agree with Pani Rose - and dislike seeing all of the commercial decorations go up for Christmas on or after Thankgiving. I worked at a dime store when I was 16(many years back )and they took the Christmas decorations down on Christmas Eve. Nicht sehr gut..

Blessings

Mary Jo aka Porter

PORTER YOU ARE BACK!!!!!!!

Humm, must be home for Christmas break. Anyway good to see you are ok, and I am sure you are having a lovely winter.

Pani Rose

ByzTn wrote:
until after the Christmas celebration of the Armenians on January 19th. That way we can show that Christians may have a multiplicity of customs surrounding the Birth of Christ, but we are all one in His Family.

I have been thinking about that too. Since it seemed we were unable to get it decorated before Christmas Eve, I was thinking maybe God wanted us to celebrate with our Orthodox brethern.

Also, Bob we had some elderly friends that did a similar thing. Only every year they just covered it with a huge plastic bag and moved it into the laundy room (which was rather large) over in a cornor so it wasn't noticed. At the time I thought it was rather funny we were in our twenties, but as I have gotten older it kind of makes sence. But hopefully it will be a real tree every year now so that definately won't work.

Pani Rose

Mary Jo,

Can you explain, for the benefit of us young'uns - what's a "dime store"?

Many years,

Neil, who is just kidding and remembers penny candy and 3 Musketeer bars that were big enough and made to be broken into 3 and shared with 2 friends

I suppose in another 25 years the young'uns won't know what a 'dollar store' is.

Tammy

Tammy:

That's because it's taken 25 years to have a dollar buy what a dime once did. Maybe in another 25 a ten dollar bill will be needed to buy what a buck does today.

BOB

P.S.: That reminds of an experience this sumer at the NJ shore. I went to Liturgy at the church around the corner and the priest started out his sermon by saying that he needed a new roof and a the parking lot needed paved. He then proceeded to tell the congregation that the days of dollar bills and five dollar bills in the collection were over! He told us that a ten was the new minimum in an age when people drop more than a couple bucks at Starbucks! You could have heard a pin drop!!!!

Neil, Tammy, and Bob,

Even when I worked in the dime store which, Bob, was well over 25 years ago - actually in the 50's nothing much sold for a dime unless you count bubble gum and jaw breakers(who remembers jaw breakers?) But to explain the term "dime store" which probably started in the 30's when things were a dime or so mother used to say. We called Ben Franklin, Newberry's, and other such places 'dime stores'.

As I just wrote Pani Rose we are still here in Tucson until April. I am back on-line from here cuz got a new after Christmas gift of a lap top. So learning how to use the little black box.

Excuse me for getting a little off the Christmas tree topic but fun to share.

January Blessings,

Mary Jo(porter)

Good to have you back, Mary Jo.

Charles