When Is The Right Time To Take Down Your Christmas Tree?

It's always fun getting and decorating the Greg McShea family Christmas tree. But when do you take it down? We have a real tree and put it up early, so we keep it up depending on how dry it gets. When there's more Christmas tree needles on the carpet than on the tree, it's time. Here's more on when to take down the tree.

Here are the details from wiki.answers.com:

"Following Christian tradition, the Christmas tree would be put up and decorated on December 24, Christmas Eve, and stay up until January 6, the day of Epiphany. Epiphany is a feast day that celebrates God the son, as the human Jesus Christ.

However, it seems most people put their Christmas trees up after Thanksgiving and usually take them down after New Year's Day.

The traditional day is 6th Jan, also for the decorations."

So, looks like you can take down your tree anytime now. I know people who have artificial trees and leave them up until March! Hey, why not if it keeps the house looking festive. But with a real tree, they just dry out.

My thanks to my daughter Lauren for helping me take down the tree for five hours last weekend, and capturing the action in these photos.

The biggest problem of taking down the McShea family Christmas tree is explaining to explaining to our cat, Penny Lane, why the tree is gone (she loves sitting under the Christmas tree).