Christmas Leftovers: How Long Before Your Tree Comes Down?

During the first week of December, we had a guy deliver a six-foot-tall Christmas tree to our living room. We watered it and sang holiday songs in front of it. Its little colored lights cheered up the room, and as Christmas cards from relatives flooded our mailbox, we opened them happily and placed them all on the mantelpiece facing out, so we could enjoy the pleasure of seeing our extended family and friends.

We made phone calls, wishing everybody a merry Christmas — people we hadn’t heard from all year called us. And we opened the presents on Christmas morning under the tree on Christmas day. It was a happy time. And good feelings abounded.

Five days after New Year’s, my wife and I left our home with the tree still in its place to spend the next two weeks at our New York apartment enjoying the season. We watched the skaters do happy loops on the rink at Rockefeller Center, admired the massive 80-foot Christmas tree behind the rink, and even got tickets to attend a taping of Late Night with Seth Meyers, agreeing with a warmup comedian to laugh, clap and stamp our feet when anybody on the show said anything funny whether we got the joke or not. There were electric signs visible high up in the studio that blinked when we were to do one or another of those things.

What fun. It reminded me of a time when I was 8 years old, and my dad and mom took me to a studio in Rockefeller Center to laugh and applaud in the audience for a radio show called Beat the Clock. This was before television. That’s how long ago this was. But the warmup comedian did the same glorious speech. Although the signage reading “Applause,” “Silence” and “Laughter,” which he’d display during the show for us to play our part, was just magic marker on a cardboard sign taped to the top end of a long broomstick.

When we got back to East Hampton at the end of our stay in town, we found that decorations all through downtown had all been taken down so the season was back to normal. At our house, however, the Christmas tree was still there, all lit up in our living room. How embarrassing. Why hadn’t it been taken down? Now it was just in the way.

The guy who delivered the tree was supposed to have removed it. We had paid him. I called him up and let him have it. Why hadn’t he come by?

“Let me tell you a thing or two. It’s just really annoying to get home and see it here. You can see it from outside through the front window. Neighbors must think we’re really stupid. Yes, please, come tomorrow. And if you don’t, refund half our money. Got it? You did pretty good on putting it in. Now there’s no second half, no taking it out.” And I angrily put down the phone. Some people.

Here’s another interesting story about Christmas. I was the man who played Santa Claus in the East Hampton Village Santa Parade this year. This was my 11th year doing this. And I have to apologize to the kids, because at 12:30 p.m. — after being in the parade — I never showed up at the movie theater lobby where, in a big chair, I was to have kids on my knee telling me what they wanted for Christmas.

Here’s what happened. My initial arrival was supposed to be in a helicopter setting down in Herrick Park as was done in 2022.

But it was a foggy day. So, I’m sorry, there was no helicopter. Instead, behind a three-motorcycle police escort, I arrived in the park atop a war surplus military vehicle called a BearCat that the village police department owns. A metal lid opens on top, and I was up there, waving to the thousands who came to the park.

The Santa parade followed, and after that, the motorcycles were supposed to lead me to the movie theater. But on the way, one of the motorcycles broke down, and we came to a halt. The cops chose not to proceed unless it got started again. After a while, a voice on a walkie-talkie said that Santa time was over, and the people were milling around and getting mixed up with the families taking their kids in to watch the It’s a Wonderful Life Christmas movie beginning at 1 p.m. It was chaos.

“Don’t come. Sorry.”

On still another Christmas matter, I would like to report as a journalist on a rather quick takedown of a row of six beautifully adorned Christmas trees set up at 50-yard intervals along the quarter-mile boardwalk at the marina overlooking Three Mile Harbor. This contrasted mightily to the much later takedown in the rest of the town.

I object to this quick takedown. They took it apart and carted it away just three days after New Year’s Eve. And I know this because I live right across the street. First, it was up there, on December 15, looking beautiful, and then it was gone. Terrible. Elsewhere, Christmas decorations everywhere remained up for many weeks after the takedown at the harbor. There is no reason for this.

I am writing this because of my elevated position as a columnist in Dan’s Papers. People who work for newspapers can get things done near their homes quite a bit sooner than regular people can.

I remember many years ago when a car ferry company shuttling between North Haven and New London wanted to have a new arrival dock on the beach at Napeague just a few hundred yards from where the editor of the East Hampton Star lived. The Star’s editors were livid. This would be very bad for the East End. And they got their way. The ferry plan was abandoned.

In this case, I think taking down the Christmas trees so early on Three Mile Harbor is a very bad thing for East Hampton. Joy lasted so much longer everywhere else. Certainly this great expense was completely wasted with the display left up for such a short time. Next year I want those Christmas trees left up until February 1 to make up for it.

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