As the holiday season comes to an end, it’s time to pause our favorite Christmas traditions such as baking Christmas cookies, preparing festive dinner recipes, and watching the all-time best Christmas movies and so much more festive activities.
However, part of pausing on the best time of the year, such as the festive season, inevitably involves putting away your Christmas decorations — like packing up your Christmas lights, organising your ornaments and, of course, figuring out when to take down the Christmas tree.
The conversion around when to take down your Christmas tree begins to circulate around many people all over the world which often leads to confusion and debate – about the right time to do this.
But you shouldn’t be enticed to take your Christmas decorations down too quickly because tradition states that it should stay up for a little longer than you might think.
According to Christian tradition dating back to the 4th century, Twelfth Night marks the end of Christmas and the Eve of the Epiphany (Christian feast day), as the time to take down your Christmas tree and pack away your decorations.
That means you can enjoy the twinkling lights for a little while longer, because Twelfth Night falls on either 5th or 6th January 2023 – and the dates depend on tradition. However according to Christian traditions it is said leaving your Christmas decorations up after this date is thought to bring bad luck.
After Advent, which is a period of four weeks before Christmas in preparation and celebration of the birth of Jesus, Christmas celebrations traditionally started on Christmas Day and lasted for 12 days (known as the 12 Days of Christmas), finishing on the evening of 5th January, known as Twelfth Night.
The Epiphany on 6th January is a celebration in itself, marking the Magi – the Three Kings or Wise Men – visiting baby Jesus in his manger in Bethlehem, with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. So this day signals the official end of the Christmas celebrations which means it is time for those trees to be taken down.
