Today is Twelfth Night, the last day of Christmas and the excuse you have been looking for since 6 November to discard all the festive decorations in your house.
In many strands of Christianity, the day marks the beginning of epiphany, recalling the three wise men's journey to see the baby Jesus.
This has given rise to various customs such as the baking of a circular cake, known in Spain as the Roscónn de Rey for its resemblance to a king’s ring. At 50cm diameter, it must be a very large king they have in mind.
In parts of England it was once considered normal to have a pea in the Twelfth Night cake. Whichever guest noticed the unusual ingredient was crowned Lord or Lady of Misrule for the rest of the day. It is not clear from an exhaustive study of Wikipedia when or why this practice died out.
The unusual alpine tradition of Perchtenlaufenon this day involves 350 masked young men running about the streets and throwing out evil spirits. It contrasts with the British tradition of thousands of young men off their faces throwing up evil spirits on the street, celebrated all over the nation on every available occasion.
In Edinburgh, we mark Twelfth Night by building mountains of dead Christmas trees and then moaning on about not being able to access our communal bins.* The photograph below shows a particularly fine example this morning on East Claremont Street.
Have you seen a higher or more inconveniencing one?
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*Christmas Tree Recycling
Details below have been transcribed from City of Edinburgh Council's website.
You can recycle real Christmas trees through the garden waste service. Place your tree at the kerbside, next to your brown bin by 6am on your garden waste pick up day. Bases should be removed and trees over 6ft tall should be cut it in half.
You can also take Christmas trees to any of the Community Recycling Centres. The sites will be closed 25, 26 December and 1, 2 January.
If you live in a communal bin area, just leave your tree beside the nearest shared bin on one of the dates below. They will be turned into compost and used in parks and gardens.
City Centre and Leith - Monday 5, 12, 19 January
[Image top-right: soybeck via Flickr/Creative Commons]