Essay About Christmas Undecorating

Good news on the writing front - the Hartford Courant yesterday ran this essay I wrote about when to take down Christmas trees and holiday decorations. Got the idea from passing by a house on my way to work that, as of Friday, still had its tree up. A little late, I thought...


When Should The Christmas Tree Come Down?
Holiday Dilemma: So, when is the right time to undecorate from the holidays?

By DAVID POLOCHANIN

January 15, 2012


Their tree is still up, its large, old-school glass bulbs aglow in the front doorway, as I pass by each morning. It's now Jan. 13, well past Christmas. I wonder when the homeowners will take it down, and then privately wish they wouldn't.

At least, not yet.

The small white bungalow in Glastonbury shines a light on an interesting seasonal question: Just when is the socially acceptable date to take down the Christmas tree and its related decorations?

Opinions vary, but it was my understanding that New Year's Day generally meant curtains for the Christmas season. Those who like to hold onto the holiday feeling leave the tree up until Jan. 6, when the Epiphany is celebrated. For many Christians, this is an important day. For others, it justifies prolonging packing up ornaments.

Our tree is currently on our back deck, still in its base, near the grill. My wife removed all of its decorations and lights and then hurt her back dragging it through the living room during the early morning hours on Dec. 26, before I woke up. She feels the need to cleanse our house of the clutter that inevitably gathers around the tree, such as dirty socks, magazines and used paper plates. While I would have enjoyed a few more days with the tree, what's done is done.

I don't sweat it anymore, and at least I didn't have to personally remove the tree, which I should add gave me two weeks of poison sumac after cutting it down. I learned that calamine lotion doesn't work.

At some point when I have a few minutes, I will carry the tree out into the woods behind some live evergreens and toss it beside trees from previous years, which resemble brittle skeletons of their former selves.

While Christmas trees are one matter, the outside lights and decorations still clinging to life can become, dare I say, a tad tacky, a tiny bit embarrassing, even an eyesore. In some neighborhoods I have seen those fake icicles dangling from the front gutter all year long. Is this some kind of personal statement, or simply the manifestation of a common syndrome: man being lazy?

Getting up on a ladder and removing the icicles would only take an hour, but there are so many excuses for leaving them up, and I can hear them now: It gets dark before 5 o'clock; it's too cold to do it; there's a game on soon; they look good next to real icicles; they could increase the value of our home if we decide to put it on the market in January; and, of course, the obvious: Why would anyone remove them if you have to put them up again in another 330 days? Not that I would use any of these excuses myself, but being a home project procrastinator, I understand every one of them.

This year, we took the family out one Saturday night in December and drove around admiring Christmas lights, an occasional tradition. With our two young children in the back seat, LITE 100.5 on the radio (have they stopped playing Christmas carols yet?) and hot chocolates in our hands, we enjoyed the lengths that some people go to when celebrating the holiday. The flashing light displays, the wreaths, the figurines of Santa and Frosty and Rudolph, and in one yard, Homer Simpson, were all a delight for us to see. That is, until we had to pull over and my son had to go to the bathroom in a parking lot. His bladder, it seemed, was bursting with hot chocolate.

It was a joyous season, but I'm happy to have moved on with the Christmas holiday. Still, when I pass by the front of the white bungalow, I hope to see the tree in that door, for just a little while longer.

David Polochanin, a teacher in Glastonbury, lives in Marlborough.