Lordy! I was walking the dog last night and wondered where the Christmas police were for people with their decorations still up! Growing up, my mother had the tree down New Years Day. I'm the same way and can't always hold out even that long. Just call me a Grinch!

I have mine up and will keep it up permanently (sounds like viagara tree). However, my "tree" is a big bunch of 7-foot tall branches that a florist was throwing out. I've wrapped a string of white lights around it, and put a few quails on the branches, so it's my living room lighting fixture.

My boyfriend and his roommate left their (live) Christmas tree up for a full calendar year. It became so dry and brittle that the thought of carrying it out to the street was more painful than looking at the parched, sad-looking thing. The next Christmas they got another tree and propped it up next to the old one. We put on Santa caps and took holiday card photos with the two trees. Very classy.

When my Mother lived in CT, she put her big Xmas tree out on her deck with a zillion white lights. The tree was up until her first swim in her backyard pool in May.
( Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr she loved that cold water and so do I)
Her house was near the road and we received comments about how beautiful it was to round the corner and see that tree through the big trees that bordered the road. I live in CA now and have no place to do an outside tree but those memories are some of my fondest ones.

getting rid of it
at the beginning
of the new year
feels symbolic to me
even if the year was good
it just makes room
for more
"good"

In UK old wives tales say it should be down 12 days after Christmas at the latest, or it's bad luck. Call me superstitious but I always take it down within the said time. I think if you keep it up too long it kinda takes away the magic of putting it up for Christmas.

I don't care who claims what, leaving a tree or xmas decorations up beyond January something is just plain laziness.

It's funny, because there are a lot of neighborhood association kind of neighborhoods around me with ridiculous rules about all kinds of crap, but yet there are homes in those neighborhoods with a whole front yard full of xmas decoration crap, STILL, on March 11th.
Hello, if this is not the point of a neighborhood assn. I don't know what is.

I have a friend who LOVES christmas, and goes to town in the front yard with lights, candycanes, reindeer, the whole 9 yards. It was all still out there till about a week ago. She got pretty defensive whenever I would ask her when she was taking them down, claiming there had had been so much snow this year there was no way she could have taken them down. I didn't bring attention to the fact that everyone else in the city somehow found a way to take theirs down. When she finally did, she texted me several times telling me how depressing it was and how she can't wait till next christmas to put them all back up.

we always take our big tree down shortly after new years. however, being completely honest there is still a small tree up in our basement family room. we don't really want it up...it just is. no one spends much time down there and we've all been busy.

though i may just tackle taking it down tomorrow...now that i think about it. having it up in march is pretty sad.

My tree has been down since sometime in January, but my Christmas cards are all still hanging on my kitchen door. Every so often I look at them (okay, see them) and think, oh, yeah, I should take those down. But mostly I've forgotten about them.

And I did once leave a Christmas wreath up for a whole year.

I think my family made it to mid February--for the record I had lived across the state by then! I have a friend whose grandma decorates her fake one for the seasons too. I think my in-laws have one they cut out in the yard still (from this year). They didn't like it once they got it home (after having to be towed of a mountain at $500! They went and cut another. i don't think I would have liked looking at it in the living room either.

In Sweden there is a tradition that all Christmas decorations should be taken down/thrown out/eaten twenty days after Christmas, but these days most people does it before.

Personally, I take down the decorations some day after new years eve, but I leave the lights on the outside until spring arrives.

January 6th, the Epiphany. Before that, it is bad luck, after that it is bad luck. (mind you, we usually don't put our tree up until December 24th).

I can't imagine having a tree up until March... just the thought of it actually makes me feel ill... You have to let go of the old, things that are passed, in order to welcome the present and future into your life.

At Easter for example, we always have a little egg tree made with pussy willow branches, and pots of blooming forced bulbs... there is always something new and fresh to celebrate. Live in the moment, don't hang on to things that are long past.

I think here in Europe, people would be horrified by someone keeping their Christmas tree up until spring, or beyond.

We keep the tree until the 6th of January, and then at the next occasion (meaning within the next week) out it goes. It has to, too, because after that where would you leave it? Where I live the garbage collection will take it, but only until a certain date, usually the first two weeks of January or something like that, I guess. After that, they'll just leave the tree at the kerb.

I have always heard, in the offices of Mad Magazine in NYC, they kept a Christmas tree up and decorated 11 months out of the year. They put it up January 1st and took it down November 30th. Yes, December was the only month without a Christmas tree.

I live in South Louisiana and down here it's not unusual for people to leave their fake trees up and decorate them for Mardi Gras.

Some years ago - I've kept my Xmas Tree till Mid-May
... color of - grayish-green, all needles still attached.

My Secret ?

It was standing in one of these "feed-me" stands,
and was getting a diet of: liquid plant feed and aspirin.

Looked great, BUT - was so petrified - almost like converted to metal ...
... I had hard time to fit it to a hug bag, had to chop it with a bolt-cutter to smaller pieces and at middle of night I dragged it to the garbage bin....

Outside was beginning of a summer ... and I was still sorry for my beatifull Xmas tree ... next year I got one of these artificial ones .... and never was sorry again.

Xandra

Comes down on or around 1/5, the 12th day of Christmas. Speaking of which, how can I suggest to my neighbor (triple decker condo situation) that it's time to take down the wreath on the front door?

Mine (white, fluffy, fake) came down last weekend, during spring cleaning. The wreath (still beautiful and green) came down a few weeks before. But I've been known to decorate my tree for Valentine's and Mardi Gras.

I'm all for Christmas, but we always take it down after new years...usually the weekend after. By then it is so dry and makes such a mess we WANT the thing out.

I love Christmas, but I need the space...and keeping a tree up doesn't change the fact that the holiday is over! Keep xmas in your heart, not in your homes! :)

http://www.abbeycatchat.com

Since I live in a tiny NYC apartment, the tree was packed away quickly. When I lived in a spacious Florida house though, there was one year we never got around to taking the tree down. Finally it came down in April, but not before we decorated it for Easter and called it our "Easter Bush". We tried to convince our other roommate that we should just keep the tree up and call it a "Fourth of July Fir." She wasn't amused.

I work in a library and all our decorations are stored in one basement room. Imagine my reaction when my first year here, I found a two-foot desk tree, put it up, and then got scolded by the Children's librarian for swiping her Valentine's tree!

My fake goes up the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend, and comes down New Year's Day. By then I'm sick and tired of the pretty things I was so happy with in November! Although I do sometimes go into glitz withdrawl!