Tuesday 11 January 2011

Throwing Out Christmas

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According to old tradition in Sweden, the Christmas tree should be “thrown out” on (or around) 13th January. From my childhood I remember special parties (for children) to finish off Christmas before throwing out the tree. I’m not sure if this tradition is still common. I think it goes back to the very early days of the Christmas tree, when many of the decorations were edible – like apples or gingerbread men or Christmas crackers with sweets hidden inside.

Anyway, this tree that I found on my way to the grocery shop on Sunday seems to bear witness that there are still people who take the tradition literally! I can certainly understand they wanted to get rid of the thing ;) but I don’t think it is recommended nowadays that you actually “throw” the tree down onto the street from the balcony…

When living in a town flat, there’s much to be said for an artificial tree that can just be packed into a box and reused again next year! (Yes, I have one of those. Mini size one at that. It has been with me for 24 Christmases!)

Going into town yesterday, I happened to pass the town square as they were taking down the Christmas trees there too. See photos in my Picture Book today.

I got sort of inspired, so when I got home I started packing up my own Christmas things as well. I even got the chain of lights on the balcony down today, since it happened to be snow-free and dry. Something which is not likely to last long - another snowfall is expected tonight…

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Each January, I ask myself why I ever bothered to put it up in the first place…

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… But, eventually, I once again I got it to fit into the box!

 

 

3 comments:

  1. A lot of people around here have the clear lights up all year. Not big displays on the houses, mind you. But on a large plant in their foyer, where you can see it from outside, so pretty. Or maybe as a little accent somewhere. I think you should leave those balcony lights up all winter, how cheerrful and pretty that would be!

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  2. I often do leave the outdoor lights up all winter - it depends a lot on the weather when I take them down. They came down early this year only because it happened to be snow-free, dry and not too cold on the balcony on the same day that I was taking down the indoors things anyway.

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  3. taking down the chrismtas is not my favorite thing to do, and part of that is getting the lights back in the box. i gave that up years ago and now leave them on my little trees. plug and play next year. so i don't throw out my tree. there are trees out in our neighborhood, several of them. i said to bob yesterday early am, lets take that tree home with us and burn it. daddy used to make a big deal about burning our tree and we loved it. they go up like a bomb, really fast. until i was 15, the local park had a dump site for trees and they would have a bonfire and burn all of them and it was amazing. then someone decided to bring cherry bombs to the bonfire and a teen got her eye put out and no more bonfires of the christmas trees.

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