'Night's candles are burned out ...'

Well, no. Not night's candles, but the state of the Advent wreath this morning demonstrates that we are almost at the end of the Christmas season. The earliest candle, the purple one lit away back at the beginning of December, is threatening the greenery around it, and even the Christmas candle (white, centre) is dripping with waxicles.

But it isn't yet Epiphany, though we did celebrate Epiphany along with Christmas 2 today. The Feast of the Epiphany (coming of the Wise Men, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, the Orthodox Christmas) is on Wednesday, and we shall celebrate that on Wednesday evening with incense and more wonderful music (think passing camels, majestic with bells and golden trappings ...). After that, the Christmas decorations, the tree and so on, will come down, and not before.

There's a lot of stuff on social media about the whys and wherefores of putting up and taking down Christmas decorations, regardless of the fact that really for most people they have nothing to do with Christianity - for all of us, if we're honest - and are instead the pagan trappings of the midwinter celebrations that properly should be called Yule. But even Yuletide lasted for 12 days, beginning with - more or less - the solstice; the people who boast of whipping down their decorations after Boxing Day are missing more than one point.

Mind, as they've likely had their tree up for the whole of December, who can blame them - there's probably not much left of the greenery after all that time in the central heating. Wonder if they break out the bubbly a month before their baby's born?