You Know Christmas is Over When....

byhookorbycrook

6th of Jan, Nollaig na mBan.

Caranica

I'm a big Nollaig na mBan fan and am looking forward to a nice lunch with the girls and honorary girls for the day on Saturday. Saturday night my plan is light all the candles, watch a Christmassy film with a glass of wine and toast all the wonderful women in my life. At midnight I'll plug out all the lights, blow out the candles and remove a token decoration from the tree before I head to bed. Everything else comes down Sunday.

It breaks my heart to see people taking decorations down early. On the music front I heard Driving home for Christmas on the radio on new years Eve. Made me wish I was, had a lovely restful Christmas with the family.

freshpopcorn

I found that sometime in the mid 2000's people started taking their decorations down early but during the recession people started leaving them up again. It was sort of a mixture of people trying to brighten the place up a little and the fact that little Christmas has taken off again!

BuilderPlumber

Day Lewin wrote: »

We allow a kind of tapering-down - because the next festival in our house is exactly one calendar month after Christmas Day - it is Burns Night, the 25th of January.
Celebrating the life and achievements of Scotland's national poet, Robbie Burns, whose birthday it is.
Things like tartan ribbon, pictures of deer in snow, and a string of lights etc all fit in with Burns Nicht (Scottish theme) so they are kept on the books. Plus glowing candles and a homely fire.
Likewise, some leftover Christmas food - shortbread, oatcakes, whiskey, frozen raspberries, Baileys - can all be used.

I love Burns Night, too - it is the only light in the tunnel that is January-after-Christmas-is-over.

A great idea. I think Ireland needs something like Burns night in post-Christmas January (i.e. sometime between the 7th and 31st). I think we need to retake this period back from diet/fitness peddlars (they can have the summer, where they belong!!) and all that depressing culture and to have a bank holiday celebrating the end of winter. I propose a bank holiday for last Monday in January and for St Valentines day another bank holiday. The latter should be similar in spirit to Christmas, of a time of love and kindness and not having to endure that dreadful Tubridy Late Late junk all about lust and not about love and kindness. 2 extra bank holidays would make the winter a much nicer time.

BuilderPlumber

I think more needs to be done across the year and nicer things happening to keep all times interesting. There are vast period of times when nothing is happening. Here's a review:

January, February, early March: during this period, there is nothing between the end of Christmas and St Patrick's Day. The fitness and diet industry and cynical sales in shops have become the 'culture'. That needs to change. 2 bank holidays needed: end of January and 14th February. Both should be themed similar to Christmas. St Patrick's Day and March 18th should be 2 bank holidays.
March-April/Easter: I think more should be done for Easter. It is a non-event and it is a shame. In Russia and other places, it is massive.
May-August: For me, the summer can go on for an eternity with not much going on. There are bank holidays but no traditions and a lot of things end for that period. Thank god there is a world cup on this summer.
September: Back to school is all one hears. The month needs some kind of harvest celebration to jazz it up especially since it is an extension of our boring uninspired summer.
October: Halloween needs to be done nicer, again bring back some of the nice older traditions.
November: Yes, it is a nice leadup to Christmas.
December: Christmas should be something that lasts beyond this and into early to mid January.

SarahLil

Caranica great post Saturday sounds fabulous, enjoy
Although my tree is down I do usually leave it up till the 6th I had my tree up early this year, my mothers tree is still up I’ll be taking it down the weekend I might get us something nice for Saturday afternoon and stick on a Christmas movie finish the season off
Thanks for the idea 👍

Posy

I think BuilderPlumber should be the next president. Sounds like a mighty fun year!

Plus, think how he would doubly solve both the housing crisis, and the flooding issues.

Postgrad10

Boo , who's idea was this? Christmas is never over !! It's always Christmas in our hearts.