<p>lol…that’s why we kept Baby Jesus in the piano seat. Now, we keep him in a drawer in a living room end table. </p>
<p>We have four nativities set up in the house. Since the multiple babies Jesus do not appear until Christmas morning, they are safely ensconced in the liquor cabinet throughout Advent.</p>
<p>Should I mention that we are Irish Catholic?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>laketime…you do realize that the baby is under age, don’t you?</p>
<p>I am with musicmom’s DH, and would probably leave the tree up till Valentine’s Day if it was a fake one. But since it’s real, next week is recycling 
I am not religious, but that hasn’t stopped me from invoking Epiphany as my reasoning; and now atomom tells me I can cite Candlemas for an even longer season? That’s awesome! But I don’t have Christmas lights outside, just a wreath and inside holiday card display. I call those “seasonal,” as in winter season.</p>
<p>I love the stories of moving the three kings and hiding baby Jesus in the piano bench and liquor cabinet–I want to get a nativity set just so I can follow these traditions!</p>
<p>No set date here. I put most things away today as I don’t watch football and had some extra time. The outside lights will stay put until a warmer day. I will probably keep turning them on (white icicles) until mid January as it seems warmer in the cold, dark nights.</p>
<p>We have two artificial trees and they’ve been up since Dec. 1. I love a long season, but we’ll probably take them, and the many other indoor decoration, down sometime next week. Now that my H is retired, we’ll be heading to our place down south and so the decorations will have to be taken down. The outside lights are put up/taken down by a service and they usually come sometime mid-January. I’ll leave them on the timer until then because I love the look of them.</p>
<p>I am working on this today but I’m really hating this. I don’t know when the outside stuff will come down. Sometimes it has to wait until Spring. It just depends on the weather. Lots of them are buried under snow right now.</p>
<p>I love this thread. We got our (real) tree up late this year and I’m not ready to give it up. Since I’m the one doing most of the work, I intend to enjoy it for the entire Christmas season which doesn’t end this year till January 13 (!!!) for we Roman Catholics. I’m also having a dinner party on the 11th and still want to show off all my hard work ;)</p>
<p>I’m watering the tree faithfully and so far, it’s still drinking so falling needles are minimal. We don’t do much outside decorating so that’s no big deal.</p>
<p>Our tree comes down on Jan. 1, so guess what we did today? I’d keep it up longer, but I always think a clean family room is a good way to start the new year. Plus, we have to re-arrange some furniture for the tree, and “my” chair is put in a very inconvenient place. I just want my spot back! </p>
<p>As for Baby Jesus hiding places…growing up, the tradition was for the youngest to put Jesus in the manger on Christmas morning. I come from a large, raucous, and competitive family. Youngest brother got tired of keeping tabs on Baby Jesus prior to the 25th, so he just stashed the figurine in his underwear drawer. No one was going to look there. It has become part of our family lore. To this day, we still laugh about it.</p>
<p>My late husband was Jewish, and a Christmas tree made him feel somewhat uncomfortable, so i put the tree up no more than a week before Christmas and it was always down the 26th, with the rest of the decorations down before New Years. My new sweetie on the other hand, is quite the Christmasaholic. Decorations go up the week of Thanksgiving, and sometimes the Christmas village stays up til Feb. </p>
<p>This year we moved the week before Thanksgiving, and we were a bit in a hurry to see the house naked without the 9 foot tree, 27 house village, three mantles and a gone with the wind staircase full of garlands, and half a dozen large santas. So everything was taken down and put away by the 28th.</p>
<p>
Yes – me, also!</p>
<p>Well, I was curious after the discussion of Epiphany, wondering why my mainline Protestant church never mentioned it. I wondered if I’d been sleeping through sermons or something. Nope. Our decorations were still up today in the sanctuary, but the pastor kept referring to our New Year. Epiphany was never mentioned and the overall impression was that someone forgot to take down the decorations.</p>
<p>Do other churches have pastors that talk about Epiphany? I still don’t quite understand what it is. What is the main point in the sermon?</p>
<p>Ephiphany is a big deal with the Greek Orthodox community down here in Tampa Bay Area.</p>
<p>[Tarpon</a> High junior making first dive retrieves Epiphany cross - Tampa Bay Times](<a href=“http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article1269254.ece]Tarpon”>http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article1269254.ece)</p>
<p>Epiphany is a formal church holiday in liturgical churches, just like Christ the King sunday, Pentecost, Lent etc. </p>
<p>I don’t know that the sermon would reflect this too much. The bulletin might refer to this as epiphany though</p>
<p>I happened to be with the local Presbyterian church pastor on Friday and she was discussing how she wanted to have some parish kids act out the epiphany today by dressing up as the three wise men and bringing gifts to Christ in the manager during the Sunday mass today.</p>
<p>The standard song to sing today in church is “We Three King of Orient Are”.</p>
<p>Our pastor spoke of the recent book by Pope Benedict that debunks many Christmas myths such as the shepherds & wise men visiting Jesus shortly after his birth, noting that these visits may have taken place several months to years after the birth. </p>
<p>[Pope’s</a> book on Jesus challenges Christmas traditions - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/22/world/europe/vatican-pope-jesus-book/index.html]Pope’s”>http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/22/world/europe/vatican-pope-jesus-book/index.html)</p>
<p>Today. My kid went back to college yesterday. Christmas lasts as long as I can make it last. Ornaments are about to drop off by themselves from tree droop!
The mantle wreath is sort of all year round decor with extra added for Christmas. Love to light it up!</p>
<p>Epiphany at the earliest; how could you cut off Christmas before the full twelve days of Christmas are over? Truth is, though, we usually keep the tree up until it’s losing so many needles it’s not longer worth it. And many people here in Minnesota keep up exterior lights until well into February or even March, when the days are starting to get appreciably longer. The Christmas season is a real festival of lights around here. It’s our pagan Nordic, Germanic, and Celtic ancestors in us; we use the lights to ward off the long, dark winter.</p>
<p>Tree came down today. Even with a freshly cut tree, we cut, it started to loose its needles after a month.</p>
<p>Agree with gouf78. The mantle looks so good for the Christmas holiday, I have decided that a winter theme, Easter/spring theme, summer and fall would be good. Going to have to work on this. Already have autumn and Christmas done.</p>
<p>General rule for me–all down by end of January. Exception, I leave two wreaths up but with different , not Christmas, bows. Winter decoration I call it.</p>
<p>Today I took everything down and packed in boxes except the tree (fake) and ornaments, although I have pulled the plug on the lights. Will get to those next weekend and get everything packed away in the attic until Thanksgiving 2013.</p>