The Tenth Day

Today is the tenth day of Christmas, the end of the last weekend of Christmas. Most people will have taken their decorations down by now; ours will stay up until Twelfth Night, 6th January. I read recently that church tradition had people keeping the decorations up until Candlemas at the beginning of February; this sounds like the church recycling an older tradition, the idea of bringing greenery into the house for the darkest months. I once saw 'Christmas' decorations up in Prague in mid-January, perhaps an echo of this tradition.

Sharp drop in temperature last night. It was minus 5 in the courtyard at dusk and then dropped to about minus 8 by the time I went to bed. A sharp cold, I could feel it as soon as I opened the door. Clear, glittering stars. A gothic moon, blade-like, half-full and surrounded by frost-haze, through the bare branches of the beech tree, but my point-and-click digital camera wasn't up to recording it.