Is your Christmas tree still up?

“Happy Christmas” by Johansen Viggo, via Wikipedia

Someone posted this tidbit on Facebook this morning, which addresses the question of when you should take down your Christmas tree:

Traditionally, Catholics did not take down their Christmas trees and other Christmas decorations until January 7, the day after Epiphany. The Twelve Days of Christmas begin on Christmas Day; the period before that is Advent, the time of preparation for Christmas. The twelve days of Christmas end on Epiphany, the day that the Three Wise Men came to pay homage to the Child Jesus.

But then you have people like this guy, who was profiled last week in USA TODAY:

A slim spruce covered in tinsel and dusty Christmas decorations has stayed parked in Neil Olson’s living room for 40 years now, and it somehow has retained its needles over those four decades.

“Most of ’em don’t last,” Olson, 89, said. “The needles are kept on for a reason. It’s supernatural, I say.”

Olson put up the tree in 1974 when two of his six sons went off to serve in the Vietnam War. He planned to take it down when he had all six boys home again for Christmas at the same time.

He’s still waiting for that day.

Five of the kids live in Wausau. But the eldest, who is disabled, lives in Washington state and has been unable to make the journey back to Wisconsin at Christmas.

“I bet you if my sixth boy comes home, the needles will drop right off,” Olson said.

I say: keep the tree up as long as you can. Nothing says “Christmas” and the season like the scent of pine and the scattering of dead needles on the living room floor.