Three kings from Persian lands afar

[venta]

Help. I have a dilemma. It is January 6th, Twelfth Night, and during the day (while waiting for code to compile, and so on) I have been carefully taking down the Christmas cards, holly and ivy which have been decking these halls of late. I don't, after all, want the goblins to get me.

However, does any know goblin views on poinsettia? There is a very large specimen of the genus Euphorbia pulcherrima sitting on the table, looking extremely Christmassy. Obviously I don't want to throw it away - but do I need to hide it, or disguise it, or anything ? Rebadge it as an early Easter decoration ?

To be honest, I don't think it's all that long for this world. The wretched thing has been slowly trying to die on me since dinner party guests brought it as a present shortly before Christmas. I phoned the more horticulturally-inclined parents to ask for advice on the care and feeding of a poinsettia, but the list of musts and must-nots was so long that I decided me and such a nesh plant were never going to get on very well.

Comments

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

My dilemma is the remaindered Christmas toys for the gerbils I bought from Pets At Home this week. Does a chain of wooden trees and puddings for gnawing purposes count as decoration? I don't want bad luck to befall either myself or the gerbs.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think that, so long as the trees and puds aren't being used for decorative purposes, you're in the clear. Otherwise we'd see mass destruction of pine forests every Epiphany.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Today is Epiphany. Twelfth Night was last night. :-p

Go with the Candlemas date (Feb 2nd) and you've got nearly a month to kill the thing.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Today is Epiphany. Twelfth Night was last night

Was it really ? Well now. I didn't know that.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

There are a number of different things I point out to people at this stage... in varying tones of disbelief and annoyance depending on how argumentative they wish to be. Don't take any of it personally! In brief:

1. Church seasons don't overlap. Advent stops, Christmas occurs, Epiphany is next (and is a fixed date, like Christmas). So those that know today is the feast of the Epiphany have no excuse for thinking it's also Christmas. That's like February and March happening on the same day.
2. Christmas Day has to be one of the days of Christmas. It isn't Advent, it's Christmas. The clue is in the name, as they say. The only way Jan 6th can be the 12th night/day is if Christmas Day isn't one of the 12 days.
2a. Some people get very technical and invoke the 'day/night aren't the same thing' argument. Well, ok, so if you like this argument, Christmas Night (25th) is the first night of Christmas and Boxing Day (until sunset) is the first day. Tenuous, but run with it... oh look, the dates still don't work out. Jan 5th is the twelfth night, even if you want to argue for Jan 6th being the twelfth day (which it isn't, see point 1).
3. Superstitions about taking down decorations date back to before the calendar changed so it's a bit pointless worrying about goblins now, you're already using the wrong dates (unless we assume that goblins use the same calendar as the rest of us. It's possible).
3a. The traditional season for all that sort of thing [Christmas and related festivities] was at one point Dec 24th to Feb 2nd, so you've ages to go if you subscribe to that.
3b. At least you didn't - I hope - put up your decs in November and take them down on Boxing Day, which has to be the best example of Completely Missing The Point I encounter on a yearly basis.

[venta.livejournal.com]

1. Church seasons don't overlap.

I quite agree, except I never think of twelfth night as being a religious thing. It doesn't feature (as far as I'm aware) as a "date" in the prayerbook. Your point is still valid, of course, because the phrase "twelfth night" dates from a time when church was sufficiently intermingled that I doubt people would have let a Christmas 'season' lap over into Epiphany.

2. Christmas Day has to be one of the days of Christmas.

Of course. The idea that if you counted to Jan 6th you end up with 13 days never worried me much. Things regularly don't add up. People commonly talk of Lent as being "forty days and forty nights" and "six weeks", when it manifestly can't be both. It's probably all Pope Gregory's fault anyway.

All your points make sense, I'm just used to the idea that people say "twelfth night" and mean Jan 6th. Twelfth night happens thirteen days after Christmas, and Good Friday was a crap day. I have read numerous end-of-the-decade LJ posts without batting an eyelid. I can also believe six impossible things before breakfast :)

Also, I'm sure goblins use a modern calendar. They probably all have Blackberries, the little bastards.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Yes, Lent is a fun one. It runs from Wednesday to Sunday, of course, so it's not going to be a full six weeks but it is nearly six weeks. OTOH according to many, Sundays in Lent 'don't count' for abstinence purposes (that was a surprise to me to when I first encountered the idea!) so it isn't even 40 days of abstinence either. *gah*

I know what you mean about twelfth night as a non-religious idea, and no, it isn't a date in the prayerbook, but then neither is Mardi Gras and that's quite firmly entrenched (in relevant cultures). :)

I swear goblins broke my last three phones, particularly the last one which was working one minute and then off and refusing to switch on, the next. They're not getting their hands on the new shiny one!

[ylla.livejournal.com]

so it isn't even 40 days of abstinence either.

It is. It's 40 days not counting Sundays, and 46 if you do. It's also 6 and a half weeks.
Yes I am pedantic enough to have counted this before. Usually because of chocolate :)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Ah, I think I lost a week somewhere when counting to check. Yes, you're right, it's over the six weeks and the 40 days does work. I still think it's a cheat to say Sundays don't count, but then I never give up chocolate for Lent. ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Not as much of a cheat as arbitrarily declaring animals to be fish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver#In_dietary_law) so you can eat them in Lent :)

[(Anonymous)]

That's Christianity for you. Steal existing holidays, build churches on existing worship sites (e.g yew trees are often older than the churchyards), arbitrary decisions about all matters scientific (from classification of flora nd fauna to flat vs. round Earth, and origin of the universe), without recourse to factual data. It's traditional you know.

If the early church had invented their own holidays, rather than trying to subvert midwinter and spring solstices (approximately Christmas and Easter) we could have many more public holidays.

W.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

I'm glad i can still eat Beaver during lent....*smirk*

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm sure goblins use a modern calendar. They probably all have Blackberries, the little bastards.

That made me laugh.

Goblins now make me think of Labyrinth. To get my little brother they'd have to battle TheHattedOne. I think I'd bet against the goblins.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

That's like February and March happening on the same day.

My brother was in 2010 whilst simultaneously I was still in 2009 and that's an entirely different decade, does that count ;-).

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Psh. Half the world manages that, on a smaller scale, every day. :)

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

Is it an entirely different decade? I think you've just opened a new can of worms there!

[ylla.livejournal.com]

3. Superstitions about taking down decorations date back to before the calendar changed so it's a bit pointless worrying about goblins now, you're already using the wrong dates (unless we assume that goblins use the same calendar as the rest of us. It's possible).

Surely we were using the wrong dates then, and the right dates now?
So if the goblins always kept their dates right by the calendar, we're ok again, and if they're still using the Gregorian calendar, they've only just got to Christmas, so we've got a while.

Admittedly I had no idea goblins were involved at all.

What happens with the not overlapping in places where they celebrate on the evening of the 24th? cblgg1 always says it's jul once the church bells have rung, about 6pm.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I think the local church tradition is to end Advent then, but that still gives you Jan 5th as the day to take down your decs (both by using 24th/25th as 1st night/day of Christmas/Jul/whatever, and by 'the day before Epiphany').

I don't know how the goblins feel about our having put the decorations up early, if they're still using the Gregorian calendar, but if it's anything like how I feel about people who put them up in November, they're probably pretty mad by now. :-)

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

*Applauds*

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Heh, I thought it was last night too, but assumed that you would know more about such things than me so was keeping quiet ;-)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

(Where, by "such things", I mean "English folk traditions that may or may not involve goblins".)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

We didn't know either and only discovered yesterday with the aid of some internets!

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Golly, Sarah Kennedy was right after all! A year of bad luck for me, then.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

That's the truly scary message of this post. Sarah Kennedy was right. We're all doomed.

(Is it me or was she having a particularly bad morning this morning? I counted four bizarre pronunciations and two words where she completely gave up, before the 7 o'clock news.)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

She doesn't wake me up until 7 - seemed to have recovered by then!

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

I think you will survive the goblins. They may attack the poinsettia though. Or make it live just to spite you. Who can tell with these goblins eh?

Do goblins get you if you don't take down birthday cards? Only I have the most fab cards ever and I can't bear to take them down.

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

I'm risking Goblins as I'm not putting my (alive and in a pot) Christmas tree out in all that snow.

[venta.livejournal.com]

So long as you've taken baubles and tinsel off it, I reckon you can rebrand it as a houseplant safely enough :)

(Did the card and voucher reach you ok, by the way? Seem to have a lot of adrift post this Christmas...)

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

The card and voucher did indeed reach here (and my first graze box arrived this morning). Thank you!

[ruanae.livejournal.com]

I was always a little confused by this as its bad luck if you take your decorations down after the 6th. But what happens if you dont take them down at all? And how much has to be up to count as decoration, we always seem to end up with a bit of tinsel stuck to the picture rail bit that stays there for months. does that count?

As for the poinsetta, I'd personally say take it outside and burn it, but thats more to my intense dislike of them as I used to help prepare my parents church for Christmas every year so would end up moving around 400 - 500 of them around until the display looked "right". So i may be slightly biased against them...

[triskellian]

As I understand it, what the goblins don't like is you taking decorations down after Twelfth Night (whenever that may be) and as such, you now have to keep your poinsettia alive until next Christmas.

(We had a poinsettia, which was just barely alive until we needed the surface space and moved it outside. While it may still technically be alive, I doubt it'll survive much longer, since I expect 'put in snowdrift' is on the must-not list.)

[skorpionuk.livejournal.com]

You have a nesh plant! Superb, that's a word I haven't heard in a while.

Hope the goblins don't get you, where else would I turn for my linguistic delights?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I was slightly surprised no one picked me up on that. I couldn't decide whether everyone knew what it meant, or they're all so used to me gibbering incomprehensibly that made-up words just wash over them...

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Gibbering...However :
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nesh

[venta.livejournal.com]

Is there any question I could have asked to which that wouldn't have been your answer ?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Problems we wish we had...

Nice userpic, by the way. That's a really lovely photo of you, and I've not seen/noticed it up til now.