and you will know them by their trail of pine-needles

I think it is a little sad to take down Christmas decorations prior to Three Kings' Day, the twelfth day of Christmas—especially considering the preparation and the investment of time to trim ones home and then to have to acknowledge that it's all over and back to normal schedules and especially too when the weather has yet to deliver anything seasonal.
It is, however, a little bit unseemly to have public decorations too far after that date. This year, we waited a little too long to take down the Christmas tree. It looked ok and not overly dry, provided that one did not disturb the boughs. After removing the lights and the ornaments there was a thick halo of needles on the floor, raining down every time you touched the branches like one of those sand-paintings. Even more exploded off once the tree was tossed over the balcony, so it could be drug—with due ceremony, mind you, ritualised like every aspect of the holidays (in Sweden, the ceremony is named Julgransplundring—publicised in part by a Swedish furniture giant—when the family plunders the tree for edible ornaments and launches the tree out the window but takes place on the Feast Day of St. Knut, which roughly corresponded with Epiphany under the Julian calendar), to the composting lot, the Christmas tree grave yard.