Well, would you look at this? I've made it past the first post. Whatever happens next, I am at least not doomed to be a one-post wonder. The next goal is to get into double figures, and then maybe we'll look at setting some slightly more ambitious targets...
We're now three days into a new year, and three days from the official end of Christmas on January 6th – Twelfth Night, or Epiphany. All Christmas decorations are supposed to be taken down by midnight on that day, or else... I'm not certain what exactly is supposed to happen to you if you fail to meet this deadline, I only know that it is, without doubt, Very Bad Indeed. The mere thought of a single bauble or sprig of holly staying up even a minute past midnight is enough to give my mother serious palpitations. Though, admittedly, she is a 'Get those shoes off the table, there’ll be a row!', 'There may well be enough rain to drown the Sahara out there – you still can’t open that umbrella until you’re at least six feet clear of the front door, understand?', 'What do you mean, you just left the penny lying on the floor – do you have any idea what you’ve done?!' kind of person.
Anyway, in order to avoid the aforementioned palpitations, I shall clear the house of all things sparkly, shiny, evergreen, or in any way festive, by about 5 pm on Sunday. The only room to escape this yuletide purge will be the dining room, since we have a family tradition of enjoying a good Twelfth Night Dinner to mark the end of Christmas. We eat a delicious meal, in a room still twinkling with fairy lights and bedecked with tinsel, holly and cards, and each receive one last Christmas present, usually something that you might have wanted for Christmas but did not receive on the day itself. Then, after dinner, the dining room, too, is cleared and the last decorations packed away. Christmas is officially over and the New Year begins in earnest.
Until then, as far as I’m concerned, it's still Christmas time. And no amount of those garishly coloured Easter Eggs, already evident in an alarming number of shop windows, will convince me otherwise.
2 comments:
I love the idea of a Twelfth Night feast and another present. I'm going to do that next year. January sucks. January, the Month of Rain and no Presents.
January is indeed a supremely sucky month, useful only for hibernation and for doing all the boring things that need to be done to set you up for the rest of the year! (I refer, of course, to such delightful activities as website polishing/overhauling, apologies to people for Christmas-related crimes, e.g. bad presents or failure to send a card etc, and general paperworky stuff.)
Anyway, re Twelfth Night dinner, it's not too late for you, Sapph - you could still get it together in time and give this rainy January some meaning! Go on, I dare you - just think of that last, lovely present... ;-)
Emma x
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