Christmas Trees

Well I just set up my "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree. It's early by Czech standards but late for Americans. In the USA, most people put up their Christmas trees right after Thanksgiving (the 4th Thursday in November). The trees come down right after New Year's Day. It's usually bad form to have your tree and decorations still up past the first Saturday in January.

In the ČR, people do not decorate their trees until December 24th. To me that just makes for a very busy day especially when everyone is off preparing their dinners of fried carp and potato salad. Most Czechs leave the decorated trees up until January 6th for the Epiphany, the Feast of the Three Kings.

I don't understand putting the tree up so late in December. Christmas is basically over by the time the tree actually goes up. I'm sort of compromising this year which is why my "tree" went up half-way through December. Since I'll be in Malta for New Year's, I'll take it down when I get back to Brno.