Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

How we lost the seasons

Nick Groom's The Seasons is an elegy to a time when we lived according to the farming and religious cycles — and a plea for us to attend village festivals and bonfire nights

Irwin Piper takes his sheep to slaughter [Getty Images/Alamy/Shutterstock/iStock] 
issue 04 January 2014

So, what are you doing with your Christmas decorations? Still up? Did the tree get put out on 2 January? Maybe you’re holding out until the Twelfth Day, on the basis that it’s bad luck to have the decorations up after that? Or are you going out on a limb and keeping your holly, bay and ivy up until 2 February, Candlemas? This last is in fact the correct answer for traditionalists; prior to Victorian times, people kept the Christmas season going, along with the greenery, right up until Candlemas.

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