It Was A Wonderful Christmas & It's Not Going Anywhere Yet

I realize that many people take their decorations down the day after Christmas or shortly thereafter.  Although I can understand the reasoning behind this, I personally don't want to end the season early.  What I haven't understood, until this year, are the people who put their trees up on Christmas Eve.  Why so late?  Well, I learned a bit more about the 12 Days of Christmas this year.  I've always known that the 12 Days begin on December 25th & end January 6th.  However, I did not know that people originally celebrated the 12 days by giving gifts on January 6th ... the date when the church celebrates the wise men giving gifts to the Christ child.  That sounds kind of nice, doesn't it   : )   I did a bit of research & discovered that Latin American Christians in particular extended the 12 days to 40 days, ending the celebration of Christmas with Candlemas on February 2nd!  Candlemas is the celebration of Jesus being presented in the temple.  He is celebrated as the Light of the World & thus candle services are held on that day to commemorate this.  People would put up their Christmas decorations on Christmas Eve & leave them up until Candlemas.  I do not know if this practice continues, but I found an interesting poem written sometime in the 17th century by Robert Herrick which refers to it.  The poem is called "Ceremony Upon Candlemas Eve" & begins as follows ...

"Down with the rosemary, & so

Down with the bays & mistletoe;

Down with the holly, ivy, all,

Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas Hall."

I think that's pretty cool!  Of course I've always enjoyed the history behind things so I enjoy learning stuff like that   : )

Our tree & decorations are still up & will remain up until at least the 6th.  I've been promising to share some photos of our tree so you can see my stitched ornaments, & here they are.

I fear I probably haven't captured all of them, but hopefully you've seen the majority. There are a few ornaments that I stitched last year & the year before which I will be getting rid of before next Christmas.  I just don't like them anymore so why have them on my tree?  I will either give them away or use them for cat toys or something ... I'm not sure yet.  I do plan to stitch many others to take their place though   : )

Speaking of cats, did you spot Sophie in the background in one of the tree photos?  She is across the room right now, sleeping curled up in a decorative vintage chair rather than on the heating vent for some reason.  She looks so cute ... I leaned quietly over the table & took a picture to share with you.

Yesterday Sally & I started our SAL ... Lone Elm Lane's Snow Angel design.  We took a few stitches to start the new year, but our regular day to stitch this design will be Thursday.  I am using the fabric & floss suggested by the designer, but I might replace the fabric.  It's 36-count & she suggests stitching it over 2 with 2 strands of floss.  However, to me this appears to be a bit too much floss for this count of fabric. Then again, maybe not.  I will put in some more stitches today but may end up frogging & ordering a different count ... maybe 32, maybe 40.  Here's my start.  Look closely or you might miss it ... lol!  

If you are also going to stitch this design, there are 2 pattern corrections you need to know about.  I posted about them back in October.  Click here to view that posting.

Wishing you a wonderful second day of 2014!