Perennial Christmas Tree

I passed by our local Post Office today, and saw that their Christmas tree is still on display. It is already May, for goodness sake! Is our Post Office still in the Christmas Holiday vibes?

Maybe the employees are just slacking and do not want to take the tree down. Or maybe the local postmaster really like Christmas and want it the whole year through. Or maybe that keeps the workers in that office in bright and joyful spirit, like jolly elves. If it took them this long to take it down, might as well keep it on display as Christmas is just a few months away, right?

This made me think, what is the acceptable practice of putting up the Christmas decorations and the acceptable time to put them away?

In the Philippines where I grew up, Christmas season starts unofficially when the months ending with “ber” arrives. That means by September it is a common practice that people can start putting up their Christmas decorations. Christmas songs can be played as well. In fact it has become a meme, that by September 1, people will post on their social media an image of Jose Marie Chan, a popular Filipino composer and singer, known for his Christmas songs, asking if he can start singing his carols.

Here in the United States, the official start of Christmas season is by Thanksgiving weekend. Though it is not unusual that some stores or malls will put up their holiday decorations even before Thanksgiving which is the last Thursday of November. It seems that decorating whenever you feel festive is becoming more common, with many starting in early November or late October.

In our home here in the Iowa, since we traditionally have a live Christmas tree, we usually harvest our tree from the tree farm, bring it home, and set it up by early December. We don’t want to set it up too early so it won’t become too dry by the time Christmas Day arrives. Or else it would not only gifts, but also lots and lots of pine needles would be under the tree, as the tree would already be shedding off!

How about the time when we supposed to take down the decorations?

Here’s what AI (Google) say: Christmas decorations are traditionally taken down on the Twelfth Night (January 5) or Epiphany (January 6) to avoid bad luck; while many remove them immediately after New Year’s Day, others follow older traditions by keeping them up until Candlemas on February 2nd.

I did not know that there will be bad luck if you don’t take down the Christmas decorations at the “right” time. What kind of bad luck, like house lizards falling down on you? Is there really a bad luck or this is unfounded superstition? Does our local Post Office know that?

For us, we usually take down our tree the first weekend after the New Year, or whenever we have time to do it. For those who have real Christmas tree, I guess another time you take them down is when the tree is dead and dried up already, as it becomes a fire hazard, a real bad luck and not just superstition.

However, there are places in the world that it is always Christmas the whole year through. This includes: Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, Finland; North Pole, Alaska; Christmas, Florida: Santa Claus, Indiana; North Pole, New York; Noel, Missouri, and Christmasville, Tennessee.

Maybe will add to the above list, our local Post Office.

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Photo above is a hanging Christmas tree that we saw a few years back. This definitely requires a lot of work to set up and take down. (Photo taken at Galeries Lafayette Champs- Élysées)