My wife and I went to my mother-in-law’s home in Rouen for Christmas Day, just as soon as I had finished the Mass of the Day in my chapel. The other family members would have been to the Cathedral on Christmas morning. We had the customary Christmas pig-out (not pork but stuffed guinea fowl) together and exchanged presents. There were whoops of delight from the children as they received their Lego sets, toy cars, dolls and whatnot. We had a pleasant walk together in the streets of Rouen, and went home in the evening.
As we walked down the street to where my van was parked, we saw a bare Christmas tree on the pavement awaiting its collection by the dustbin men the next morning. What abject sadness! What did Christmas mean to people who took their tree and decorations down the day itself?
As in many countries, commercial “christmas” starts on the day after Halloween – a whole month before the beginning of Advent. The supermarkets fill their shelves with possibilities for gifts. Weekly shopping becomes increasingly stomach-turning as we find increasing quantities of foie gras, poultry of every kind and suggestions of how people are going to make themselves ill and drunk. Finally, at the beginning of December, corresponding with the beginning of the Advent everyone has forgotten, the first Christmas trees make their appearance. By the second Sunday of Advent, the houses have their sophisticated electric illuminations, some very badly done.
Sophie and I waited until about the third week of Advent to buy a Christmas tree and install a simple electric garland with coloured bulbs on the front of our house. About the same time, I brought down the Norman farm style building in plywood I use for the crib and installed it in the chapel, with all the figures except the Infant Jesus.
The Infant Jesus goes into his place just before Midnight Mass, usually with the singing of Il est né le divin Enfant.
We are keeping our Christmas tree and decorations until just after the Epiphany, and I keep the Crib until the Octave of the Epiphany. Normally, the Crib should remain until the time between None and First Vespers of Candlemas on February 1st, but it is folk custom, not strict liturgical practice. Mid January seems enough as Septuagesima is not far away. The Octave of the Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas Cycle in the Temporal calendar and the Purification in the Sanctoral.
So, with our being rooted in the Christian liturgical tradition, the effect of seeing a discarded tree on the evening of Christmas Day is harrowing to say the least!
The Blue Flower 
The 12 Days of Christmas are also personally significant for my wife and I. Many years ago, we were civilly married on Christmas Day before a judge and, on the following Epiphany, celebrated a Church Blessing. My wife and my stepdaughter, then a small child, were also baptized at that time.
We in Olympia Washington State got our tree on the 23rd, but went out of town to celebrate with dear friends over the holiday. we finally got it decorated yesterday! and it will be up until Theophany at least. so you are in good company across the water, Father!
Rdr. James Morgan
My grandmother, since as long as I can remember, always observes the tradition of placing the Christ Child in the manger only on Christmas Eve and keeping all her decorations “until the three wise men”, as she calls Epiphany.
This year she was sick and couldn’t leave the couch, and so forgot to reveal Jesus, whom we remembered to unwrap (she keeps him in manger disguised in cloth) only at the last moments of the night before Mass.
I think this is why my mother keeps up the decorations based on that. Generally, though, its hard to sustain these kind of traditions without a broader familial or cultural context.
I am from a Slavic background, and thus put up our tree and decorations (and stockings) on December 6th, the feast of St. Nicholas. We son’t remove them before Epiphany, which my Garandmother also called ‘Three Kings’. The image of the baby Jesus only goes into the creche after midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.