Mine are up and will be up until I get tired of seeing them. They went up late so it could be awhile. We went to dinner and DH is too watching the bowl game too. We wont go to bed early but we are not going out.

I'm contemplating a way to strip a cedar chest I have, that I will need to bring INSIDE to work on. HMMM, guess that should be another thread :)

Have only put away outside lights. Step-son and granddaughter are coming Sunday so we left everything else up. Went out to eat tonight and will go to bed pretty early cause contractor is coming tomorrow to start on new sunroom!

rjinga - I painted ends tables for my son yesterday. I did it in the garage and barely cracked the doors to get some fresh COLD air inside.

donnadee54 - Oh great! You reminded me that I still have lights on my trees. :( They will have to wait until we return on Saturday. It's raining/snowing now anyway. I want them to be dry when I put them away.

Hi newhomebuilder...you know my mother also said the same thing about bad luck if you left the decorations up after new year's...I thought that superstition was only in my family! We also had the one that the animals talk at midnight on christmas eve and I loved that one...still wait up to hear what they have to say!
All my decorations went down today except for one angel above the doorway that I like to have her looking over us for a little longer.

That's funny that you mention the animals and the angle. My mother used to talk out of the side of her mouth and pretend that the animals - cows, dogs, etc.. were talking to me. This was all the time, though.

Since it takes me 3 days to put it all away, I left an angel (watching over baby Jesus)out a couple of days longer, after putting away the rest of the manger scene. It just felt right to honor him a little longer. Finally put them away (out of sight, not in spirit) yesterday.:)

I've never heard of bad luck if you leave the decorations up after new year's eve! Funny! We always left the tree up until January 6th, the day the three kings arrived at the manger according to tradition (yeah, I know). Mom would make a Three Kings cake that night; a regular cake with 3 beans baked into it. Whoever had a piece with a bean would have good luck throughout the year.

I put some of our things away but I don't want to take our tree down yet....I love the bright color of the lights on these dark dark mornings! I'm basking in its glow right now as I type and enjoy my first coffee of the day. Here's to 2010!

My next door neighbors must be up to their necks in bad luck, what with their leaving their Christmas lights up year-round.

Happy New Year! I took down and put away about 80% of Xmas last night (New Year's Eve). Remaining will be done today. My normal protocol is everything down on Dec 26th...but with a large work project & just the way things played out this year, I'm late.

The best part for me is that I have very limited outdoor lights this year (should take me 10 mins to get down), and I hung wreaths out my windows. All the wreaths went up and come down from the INSIDE of my house. Joy!!!!

I'm ready to move on.
Gayle

"My next door neighbors must be up to their necks in bad luck, what with their leaving their Christmas lights up year-round."

Yikes, I just hate that.

wow! the comment about your mother thinking it bad luck to keep decorations out for CHRISTMAS after the New Year is the most interesting thing I have ever heard. It really is.And I absolutely mean no offense at all. I just wonder now..
It is a religious celebration that the decorations represent and the bad luck reference would be something to do some research on. lol
Funny, because in my upbringing we never took down the decorations until after the Epiphany: Epiphany is the climax of the Advent/Christmas Season and the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are usually counted from the evening of December 25th until the morning of January 6th, which is the Twelfth Day. this is thought to be the time when the Three Kings came to the stable and presented their gifts.
When I see people have their trees curbside the day after Christmas, I always wondered, why the hurry. Maybe 'newhomebuilder' isnt the only one who had a parent who considered it bad luck, I also notice year after year that people put their lights up earlier, which may account for the fact that they are just tired of looking at them right after Christmas. We always have a gathering for New Years or Eve and I cant imagine my house not still in the Christmas mode from just under a week before. lol

I guess I still hold to the traditions I grew up with and being Catholic still abide by.

We start today, with pulling 5 timers, the rest will come down in the following days, quite a few day's, we have loads to come down..New Years Eve is the last of seeing our lights, because Jan 1st. is a looooong way to Christmas and it's all over!

All Christmas decorations have been down. We did opt for staying home last night. Went to an early dinner, hit the movie store and spent the evening on the couch watching movies. Even turned down invites for parties and get togethers. It was definitely great to ring in the New Year in our jammies! We've never done that before! We must be getting old, lol!

In England the 12 days of Christmas rule was (and may still be for all I know) strictly adhered to when I lived there. Decorations had to be taken down no later than January 6 and rarely before then. It was not only considered to be bad luck to leave them up after the 12th night, but also extremely tacky!
Our New Year's parties were always brightened by the Christmas decorations, as ours was last night, as always!

Im in Iceland and we have the same rule as you in England . Everything is up until january 6 , but that night every light is turned of at midnight

The older I get, the more the holidays become a solstice celebration for us. I spent the week before Christmas painting the dark concrete block walls in our basement white. It has been quite successful in bringing in some light to a dark and dreary space!

We cut our tree on Dec 23rd and decorated it that night with DS and DD and new SIL (the more time I spend with SIL the more I come to love him, we are truly blessed to have him in our family). The tree is still fresh, and I just love having something green and fragrant and so lovely with its lights, that I don't think it will come down until the end of January.

The santas and nutcrackers and stuff like that will be put away sooner.

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year. DS made a lovely dinner for us, we drank champagne and sat around the kitchen talking and laughing for quite awhile. Outside it was snowing a bit and this morning my world up here is blanketed with fresh sparkly snow. I love to see the white layers on the dark evergreens in our woods. I made fresh whole grain muffins this morning (they did have quite a bit of butter in them LOL) and we have had a lovely breakfast in front of a fire.

We have our share of problems to face, but mornings like this remind us of how much we have to be thankful for. Happy New Year to all!

Nope, not away yet here. We keep them up until Jan.6th, as we celebrate the 12 days of Christmas. I love looking at the trees/decorations after the hustle and bustle of the holiday is over.

We were at a New Year's Eve party last night and the house was still all decked out in holiday decs, right down to the table linens!

I love to extend the season.

I started taking them down yesterday and hope to have them all down by tomorrow at the latest. It is kind of sad to see them go but ya gotta move on. Sigh....

I took mine down this morning. Well the inside ones anyway. When I suggested DH take down the outside lights, he looked at me like I was crazy and said "You want me take them down with snow on the ground?" In the spirit of compromise and a peaceful day, I told him to unplug the timers if he could possible get the lights down with a little snow on the ground. We'll see what happens.

When I was growing up, our tree always went up in time for my sister's b-day, a few days before Christmas. It stayed up until after my b-day, a few days after New Year's.

In my own home, I like to take the decorations down on New Year's day. The last couple years, however, I have had to keep them up much longer than I wanted to. DD's boyfriend has come to visit after Christmas the last few years and DD was convinced it would be rude for me to take down the decorations while he was still visiting. Now while I agree that it would be rude to take them down while he was sitting in the living room looking at them, I could see no problem with them just "disappearing" while they were out one afternoon. Oh well, I guess she's just as capable of making up arbitrary rules as I am.

This year DD and BF are away visiting friends. I told her not to expect the decorations to be there when they come back next week. I do feel much better having everything put away so that once DH and DS return to their regular schedules I can get back to mine as well, without still having a lot of Christmas clean-up to deal with.

Happy New Year All!

Totally Confused

Hey, my mom also said that about removing the Christmas decorations before the 1st. I think it had something to do with out with the old and in with the new. She liked starting the new year with a clean house.

Our indoor decor is down and packed away in it's containers. Those still have to be stored in the attic. Most of the outdoor decor is down, too. I will leave a few strings of white lights up until Valentine's Day. My idea of winter wonderland decor, you know.

Our 19 year old had a party here last night. It is so good to wake up this morning with the debris of Christmas gone and a relatively clean house. What a fresh, easy way to start a new decade.

I am usually in a hurry to take my tree down by Jan 1st, but this year for some reason I love the way it looks and brings such warmth to the room. It may very well be because my 3 and 6 years old did the decorating by themselves. My son loves to wake up by 7 and turn the xmas tree lights on, sitting on the couch in the dark. He is mesmerized by all the little spinning ornaments and glistening tinsel.

All my snowman will stay up on display until I get tired of looking at them, which more than likely will be end of Feb. As I get tired of cleaning around them, they slowly start to disappear. We barely have any snow which up here in central canada is highly unusual ... we actually can still see the ground so it still doesn't seem like winter (except it is -45 with the wind chill today).

As for our lights .... we must be TACKY! and the neighbors 1/4 mile away must despise us cause out lights stay up all year round! IT is far too much work to take them off 400ft of roofline 25 ft in the air. They are red and blend in to the house so we no longer notice them unless they are on. I would rather be considered tacky then my husband risk his life every year to string them up.

Oh ya, and Mrs. Claus landed with Santa's helicopter last night to end the year with one last present for the kids. It would of been horrifying for Mrs. Claus to see that the holiday spirit ended the day after Christmas. She left the snowman chocolates, presents, the letter and the dog bones. The kids were thrilled!

Here is what our kids woke to this morning:

Happy New Year to all and the best in 2010!

Just finished taking the tree down.

Cat would not stop climbing it.

Pmartin, that is so cool!!! Good for you!!!

The fresh tree came down on Monday and all the interior decorations with it ... except the wreath in the kitchen window ... it looks like winter (not just Christmas), so it can stay for another month. I added 5 vases of fresh daisies on the window sill. The small artificial tree in the dining room is staying through Fat Tuesday. It's now decked out with Mardi Gras lights and beads.

My tree came down the day after Christmas. It was too irresistible to my 9 month old, and I was tired of keeping him away from it. Usually I leave it up until New Year's day, or until it's so dry the needles fall off when you just look at it, whichever comes first.

I'm with natal, our evergreen wreath stays up for several weeks after Christmas. It is not Christmas-y, just evergreen, and I like to see it as long as possible because the ground is usually covered with snow until March, so green is good.

Christmas came down the day after Christmas. We have lived in our newly built house several months with only primer on the walls, and the painter was due to start painting the entire interior Monday the 28th, so we needed to clear the decks. I had really loved the decorations we put up in our new house, simpler and somehow fresher than we had in our old house, but we had the painting deadline.

But I do love the clean and clear feeling of a tidy house, everything organized and put away, although the painter has parts of the house sealed off and it will be a while before we are really back to "normal," whatever that is!

We stayed home last night and watched "The Hangover." It was so relaxing!

Happy New Year.

oh, yes, I was in bed reading by 10, and my husband turned in at 11:30. I new it was 2010 in many places already so it was "OK" to go on to bed.

If I weren't sick ours would all be down by now even it only went up the day before Christmas Eve.
We both were in bed last night too early to have read the question above if we were going to stay up or not. Just not important anymore. We live out in the country so don't even have to worry about the neighbors fireworks waking us either.

Happy New Year to you all though. May it bring only good things and prosperity to all.

We took ours down Wed. Friends had a party on New Year's Eve and they still had theirs up. It was a couples with kids party. Lots of good food and some wine by the fire. Very Nice. I hope to get my fireplace one day.

I always think of my mother while taking down our decorations. My Mom loved Christmas, so much so that one year they left the Christmas tree up until May! I was horrified! I rode the school bus and the other kids laughed to see in in the window. I only wish she was still here. I would encourage her to keep it up all year round now if she wanted to. Christmas is a time for us to remember family, friends and traditions from the past and to make new ones too. I wish for everyone a safe, healthy and prosperous new year!

The tree and inside decorations came down today. The outside lights are still on and if I had my way would stay on all year long. It always amazes me how a few twinkle lights can turn something ordinary into something magical. Looking at the sparkleing trees against the snow on the ground always makes me smile. And after the year we've had smiling feels good. DH had a large pituitary tumor and was losing his eyesight, we lost BIL to lung cancer and had a cancer scare with DD at the end of the year. DH and DD are both healthy now and smiling feels really good. Happy New Year everyone. I've got a good feeling about this one.

We never even decorated this year! The kitchen reno is underway and the staging area was where the tree normally goes. There was just too much going on to try to decorate well. My sole stab at decorating was taping three little Ikea gnome ornaments inside my dining room lamp -- they're still there. Hopefully they won't offend the three kings on Tuesday. I'll make sure they're down by then.

We also are in mid-reno., although it's our bedroom/bath. But, the room where we put the tree has so much "stuff" in it right now, that it would have been one more thing to mess with, so we didn't even put it up this year.

We don't have any specific day that we usually take the christmas tree down, but it's usually sometime in January. I have a friend who puts hers up right before Thanksgiving and leaves it up until the end of February! She loves the true meaning of Christmas and wants to extend it longer. I say to each their own!

natal, I love your Mardi Gras tree! We moved from NOLA almost 14 years ago, but it will always be home for us in a way. Your tree reminds me of so many good things. Thanks for posting the pic.

We had a cold snap in December that made me reluctant to go into our frigid attic to get the Christmas ornaments. So I baked gingerbread cookie ornaments and used candy canes instead. The beauty of this is that the ornaments got taken down on their own, i.e., eaten -- easiest un-decorating I've ever had! :)

"When I see people have their trees curbside the day after Christmas, I always wondered, why the hurry."

We put our fresh tree up this year the day after Thanksgiving - much earlier than usual. By the day after Christmas, we were ankle-deep in needles, so it was time to come down.