It seems to me – tedium alert! Extremely unprofound and boringly obvious truism if not downright cliché about to be revealed – that whereas scientists draw solace from the future, artists do so from the past.

(I’ve also wondered whether people with happy childhoods naturally tend to vote conservatively, whereas those who were brought less cheerful may be instinctively more sympathetic to change. I expect I could get a whacking research grant from Ipsos Mori if I shared this extremely valuable political insight.)

Anyway, being the latter (as in, artist: rather than unhappy-childhood person) I’m a sucker for tradition. 

My Thought for the Day producer, when asked to assess me years ago, said, “Anne thinks in centuries.”

(Shaun, of course, being both historian and theologian, presumably considers centuries far too frivolously brief for any consideration .)

This being the case, in the days when we had a neighbour who made Hyacinth Bucket seem slapdash in her concern for the image of the street, I received a telling-off because our Christmas wreath wasn’t on the door by the beginning of December.

I beg your pardon, I would have said if my mother hadn’t brought me up never to use words like pardon. 

Our Christmas decorations go up on Christmas Eve. 

Oh, she said. Looking as if she’d sucked on her own holly.

Well, your bins have been out for three days, anyway.

(Touchée, I would have said, if I’d thought there was any point.)

The only snag of this delightful custom being that Christmas decorations, if done properly, take a bit of time to put up.

And a lot more time to tire of.

Obviously if you’re one of those shops that puts them up in August, you’re likely to be thoroughly sick of them… well, probably by August. After all, if you’ve got such bad taste in timing, the decorations themselves are presumably also tacky beyond belief.

But if you put them up properly, according to this hallowed practice, on what is the beginning of Christmas in most of Europe and Christmas Eve in England, then by Twelfth Night – whether or not that was last night or is tonight being a whole new argument which I suppose we might touch on if you’re not also thoroughly sick of me before another paragraph or two have whizzed by – I’m still enamoured of the mistletoe, which looks as fresh as two week old mistletoe. And the tree, which is still looking as spruce (see what I did there…? On second thoughts, never mind) as ever it did a fortnight ago.

And saying to myself, well, we can surely leave them till our Burns’ Night party.

And when that’s done, a bit beyond, perhaps…

So imagine my utter glee, a few years ago at exactly this time of year, when some helpful Reverend Blimp told us, on that outlet that is my main if not entire source of news aka the Today Programme, that we should really be keeping the springs and greenery and whatnot up till Candlemas.

So I did. 

Got some funny looks from all the Hyacinths walking down the street, looking in through our window and thinking what sluts we were. Small price to pay for Being Right, eh?

(What was slightly more annoying is that the dustmen stop collecting unwanted Christmas trees around the end of December and certainly aren’t going to remove a dead eight-footer dropping all its needles on the pavement at the beginning of February. But hey: I believe in recycling. I’m not going to complain that I had to spend hours and hours and hours stripping and sawing and getting my fingers jabbed, to put on the fire.)

Funnily enough, this year, for the first time in my life, I would happily have taken everything down before even New Year. Given that I couldn’t have a party on my birthday and there’s no one here to share anything with anyway. Apart from the half-dozen or so people I live with.

And would have done… but that we had the same assurance on yesterday’s Today Programme, from some geezer from English Heritage.

Christmas decorations come down on Candlemas Eve, he said with all the nerdy authority of E Heritage: 1st February.

It’s official. Spread the word.

Jolly holly till Feb, and may it cheer us all!

The only fly in the ointment being that he then completely undermined said authority by saying Twelfth Night is tonight.

Whereas, as any ful (and our in-house theologian, who is Always Right) no, Twelfth Night was last night. On account of Christmas Day being the first day of Christmas, not the minus-one day, obv. And tonight being Epiphany, not Twelfth…

Zzzz.

Yes, I thought you might have tired of the arguments by now.