julgransplundring

[kirkcudbright]

Stolen shamelessly from wikipedia:

Candlemas is the last festival in the Christian year that is dated by reference to Christmas; subsequent holidays are calculated with reference to Easter, so Candlemas marks the end of the Christmas and Epiphany season.

"Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and misletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all,
Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas Hall"
— Robert Herrick (1591–1674), "Ceremony upon Candlemas Eve"

Tonight we un-decorated the Christmas tree. In Swedish tradition, julgransplundring takes place on the 13th of January (a week after the Epiphany), or the next convenient weekend, but we'll be British when it suits our purposes.

Now that it's stripped, we'll dance it out to the brush-pile on the weekend.

Comments

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Here we celebrate with an annual arboreal defenestration, as it's the best way to get the tree out of the house without tracking pine-needles everywhere.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

I promise, I'm Jewish so I don't know the answer to this. It's not a setup for a dirty joke.

But.....

How do you strip a pine/spruce tree?

(ha ha, "very carefully!" Seriously, though, do you shake it? Brush it down with a device or your hands?)

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

"Strip" in this context means "remove the lights, ornaments, kittehs, and other decorations". We try *not* to remove the needles, although we always end up sweeping up at least a liter. We get really good fresh (you-cut) trees, but after 6-8 weeks, they inevitably shed needles.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Ah.....miss_chance's comment led me to believe there's something extra that can be done so that removing the tree does not shed needles everywhere. (certainly, throwing out things you'd like to keep around, including kittehs, seems like a bad idea).