When should Christmas decorations be taken down? What Yahoo readers think

Yahoo UK's poll of the week lets you vote and indicate your strength of feeling on one of the week's hot topics. After 72 hours the poll closes and, each Friday, we'll publish and analyse the results, giving readers the chance to see how polarising a topic has become and if their view chimes with other Yahoo UK readers.

The past week has seen plenty of lively debate over when people should take down their Christmas tree and decorations, now that the festive season has passed.

While some people may have whipped off their decorations immediately after Christmas and Boxing Day, others firmly believe that the lights and baubles should stay up until Twelfth Night, which falls on Saturday 6 January.

This is because Twelfth Night marks 12 days after Christmas, which is the official end of the holiday. Others still may insist that the decorations can stay up until Candlemas, which is the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ and falls on Friday 2 February - but it is widely believed that leaving decorations up after Twelfth Night is bad luck.

The topic has been top of mind among some celebrities, including This Morning presenter Gyles Brandreth, who has been sharing his domestic woes about his battle to keep the decorations up until Twelfth Night. However, his most recent post on X, formerly Twitter, reveals that he has lost the battle, as his tree has come down and is waiting to be collected by the council.

Victoria Coren Mitchell also shared her sadness that her tree came down on Thursday 4 January, due to her husband David Mitchell's insistence that Twelfth Night falls on 5 January instead of the following day. This is likely because he counts Christmas Day as the first of the 12 days.

Yahoo News UK asked our readers when they think Christmas decorations should be taken down. Here are the results:

Our poll from Monday at midday until midday Thursday asked: 'When should you take Christmas decorations down by?'

It received 5,733 votes and showed 76% of Yahoo readers believe lights, baubles, stockings and more should only come down by the end of 6 January.

Some 13% of voters said they think the decorations should come down by the end of December, with just 4% saying they should be put away by the end of Boxing Day and 3% did not lean either way.

Yahoo News UK readers were also asked: 'How important is it to take decorations down by a particular date?'

This poll received 1,727 votes with the most common vote being 10, indicating many readers thought it was very important to have decorations put away by a certain date.

The average strength-of-feeling score on all the votes was 6.

Our original poll article can be found here.

Read more of Yahoo UK's Poll of the Week articles