Undecking the Halls for a New Year!
On my tangled-up relationship with Christmas, moments of realisation and exhaling in 2024...
epiph·a·ny Epiphany (/əˈpɪfəni/ ə-PIF-ə-nee) Noun
1: 6th January - a Christian feast day commemorating the visit of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and the wedding at Cana.
2: an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) - usually simple and striking.
It’s safe to say that I’m 100% more aligned with the second definition.
5th January 2024.
As I write my first VeloMail of the year, I have a mug of tea and a giant tin of Quality Street next to me; Christmas24 (the ultimate festive TV station for excruciatingly predictable Hallmark movies) is on in the background… and for the next few hours, our Christmas decorations are still well and truly up.
Since the day after Boxing Day, there have been fewer and fewer twinkling lights in neighbours’ windows and more and more slightly needle-bare trees piling up by the chute room, awaiting collection by our local council. By the looks of it, we’re the only house on our street with its interior still all decked up until everything comes down later tonight.
Let me make this clear - I’m not one of those people who wish it was Christmas every day, nor do I have anything against people taking down their decorations before this point in the New Year - we’ve most certainly done that a few times. Whatever brings you joy is something not to be sniffed at! During this holiday season, immersing myself in the festivities until the end of today was so essential.
I wouldn’t call my immediate family (as in us lot living within these four walls) a religious one; we don’t say grace before our meals, we don’t go to Sunday Service every week, and I’ve never attended Midnight Mass - but all the flourishes of Christmas usually stay in place in our house until Twelfth Night.
As a child, I never questioned why we didn’t do the ‘godly bits’ of Christmas while my extended families on both sides did. All I cared about at that age was that moment in December when our home was transformed into a tinseled wonderland, and enjoying it for as long as Mamma Vélo (my Queen of Christmas) would make the magic last.
I now sometimes wonder about the reasons behind keeping the festivities going for as long as we do. It may be a curious mix of superstition around taking the decorations down too early and condemning ourselves to bad luck for the year ahead… and a dash of deeply repressed spiritualism.