General Chat

O.h. said all the Christmas trees were stil up in our local Shopping Mall when he went into the city yesterday!

Lizx

Lol I missed that Sandie, very observant of you!

Happy Healthy Wealthy New Year to all

love
Lizxx

GR didn't quite 'honour'
the 12th night , The snow flake was still there early hours of the 6th.. note it's gone now !
Sandie

Dear Purple

Hello

Hope you are keeping well.

Thank you for all the info about Twelfth Night.

Very good health and fortune for the new year to you, dear Purple.

Take gentle care
Very best wishes
xx

Elizabeth, that's about right I suppose lol

All cards, decorations and lights down, mostly packed away, I want to go through my list and compare the cards, am many short this year and most of them people I only keep in touch with every Christmas if you get me, so hope it doesn't mean they are no longer with us as some of them were elderly and some had partners who were unwell. Maybe a few more cards will turn up in March as they did last year lol

Deanna, well done for getting your stuff down and have fun with the hoovering! Think of me as you do it cos this afternoon I plan to do some as well lol That's if something more interesting doesn't happen!

LIzx

As my son when small quoted to me - I think it must have been after a religious education period!) "it's unlucky to be superstitious"

Saw some Hot Cross Buns today...will they do? lol

Actually, to return to the 12th Night discussion - we always take the decorations down on 6th Jan. But you will only get 'bad luck' if you believe in the supersition.

Anyone seen any Easter Eggs in the shops yet, alright I was only asking.

Yes, today is twelfth night and Allan & I have nearly killed ourselves taking the tree etc down.... EVERY YEAR, I find something which I have not done... every year!
This year? the Christmas cards and my Santa rug were still hanging on the wall..... and a few other things which I had to put into a bag.
We just could not contemplate taking the boxes down to pack them in.
They are down and put away........AND Linda is quite right Epiphany is 6th January.
So good night everyone and dont worry about me..... I will do the hoovering in the morning.....
AGAIN!!...... ;-0)
Deanna X

Wow thank you for all that info. Although I automatically wanted to think of Jan 6th as Twelfth Night, it does make sense as described for 5th Jan.
Happy Tweltfh Night everyone.

Epiphany is 6th January according to my calendar, and I have always been brought up that you took your decorations down on the 6th which was Twelfth night. My decorations came down on Monday.

My calendar says

Epiphany
Three King's Day

We always make sure all our decies are away before the end of the day. Most of ours came down yesterday and the boxes went back in the loft this afternoon.

Twelfth Night (holiday)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mervyn Clitheroe's Twelfth Night party,
by "Phiz" (c 1840)
Observed by Christians
Type Christian
Date Evening of 5 January
Observances Merrymaking
Related to Twelve Days of Christmas
Epiphany
Twelfth Night is a festival in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany and concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas.

It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking".[1] However, there is currently some confusion as to which night is Twelfth Night:[2] some count the night of Epiphany itself (sixth of January) to be Twelfth Night.[2] One source of this confusion is the Medieval custom of starting each new day at sunset, so that Twelfth Night precedes Twelfth Day.

A recent tradition in some English-speaking countries holds that it is unlucky to leave Christmas decorations hanging after Twelfth Night, a belief originally attached to the festival of Candlemas (2 February).[3]

Contents [hide]
1 Origins and history
2 Traditions
3 In literature
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
6.1 Early English sources
7 External links

Well I can't remember what date I went for last year but when I googled, the above info is what I found.

Except for a few special family cards still on the mantlepiece all our things are down now, ready to put away for another year.

Enjoy the play tomorrow.

Lizx

Hello Liz

I always believed that Twelth Night was 6 January - and I will take decorations down then and also go and see a Mummers Play in the evening.

J*

When is Twelfth Night?

Twelfth Night is the evening of the 5th January.

"The evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking".
Oxford English Dictionary


Why is Twelfth Night on the 5th January and not the 6th (Twelfth Day)?


It is only with our modern understanding of astronomy and time keeping that we start a new day in the middle of the night. To our ancient ancestors, the end of day was when the sun went down. The oncoming night was the beginning of the next day. Nights were actually part of the holiday i.e. part of the next day. visit projectbritain.com

Night Day

Christmas, started at sunset on 24 December. They considered this to be Christmas Evening (or Christmas Eve). Christmas would then continue until nightfall on the 25th which started St. Stephen's Day, (Boxing Day) the first of the twelve days of Christmas. v


Click here to find out more about the Twelve days of Christmas

To our ancient ancestors, the Twelfth night after Christmas would have been the evening before 6 January, the twelfth and final day of the Christmas season.

The actual date for Twelfth Night has caused much confusion for years and still does today. This is because our modern understanding of the words 'eve' and 'night' mean something different to what our ancient ancestors considered them to be.

For us today the night or evening follows the day: Day Night

To our ancient ancestors, it was the other way round:

Night Day

Twelfth Night (5th January) is when all Christmas Decorations should be removed so as not to bring bad luck upon the home. If decorations are not removed on Twelfth Night, they should stay up all year.

Why is it bad luck to leave the decorations up after Twelfth Night?

Long ago it was thought that leaving the decorations up would cause a disaster. People believed that tree-spirits lived in the greenery (holy, ivy etc) they decorated their houses with. The greenery was brought into the house to provide a safe haven for the tree-spirits during the harsh midwinter days. Once this period was over it was necessary to return the greenery back outside to release the tree-spirits into the countryside once again. Failure to do this would mean that vegetation would not be able to start growing again (spring would not return), leading to an agricultural disaster. visit projectbritain.com

It was also thought that, if you left the greenery in the house, the tree-spirits would cause mischief in the house until they were released. visit projectbritain.com for more information

Today people still feel uneasy about leaving the Christmas decorations up after Twelfth Night. Despite decorations now being made of foil or paper, and even though the tree-spirits are long forgotten, the superstition still survives. visit projectbritain.com for more information

Did you know?

Until the 19th century, people would keep decorations of holly, ivy, box, yew, lauren and mistletoe up until February 2nd, Candlemas Day, the end of the Christmas season, 40 days after the birth of Jesus.

The Three Wise Men are not included in the nativity scene until January 6, Three King's Day. The nativity scene is traditionally not taken down until 2 February, Candlemas.

In the reign of Victoria decorations came down on Twelfth Night and generally were burnt.

From a visitor to our website

"There was another tradition in North Worcestershire when I was young of keeping the holly decoration until Shrove Tuesday and putting it on the fire when making the pancakes (when we still had open range fires in kitchens, of course!)"
Rod Payne