[enchantmentadm]

I try to take my down or at least stop turning the lights on inside and outside the house on The Epiphany as it marks the 12 days of Christmas and has some recent tradition in our country. I think for a lot of people Christmas is over for them on December 26th...and most start decorating and celebrating long before Dec 24th. I don't think I could get all the lights I put up every year on the 24th even if I wanted to keep that older tradition.

I've been in two different Catholic Churches in the last 10 days and one of them had all their Christmas decorations still up inside the Church. The other had taken them all down except for some flowers.

On the current Church calendar, the Christmas season is over on the Feast of the Baptism, which is the second Sunday after Christmas (January 12 this year). After this Sunday, it is back to green vestments. For many people, Christmas does end with Epiphany. I noticed that even in the parish of the priest I noted in my post, the decorations were down after January 12. This may be because as pastor, he wanted to conform to the current Church calendar as far as the parish is concerned. However, he has expressed his personal view that the Christmas ends on February 2 (Candlemas) and that he leaves his Christmas tree up until then.