The Christmas lights stay on!

Date published: 05 January 2009

Christmas decorations and lights in Rochdale will not be coming down tomorrow, 6 January, the twelth night, as is the usual Christian tradition in this country. It has been decided that the decorations will stay up until after the 7 January in recognition of the Orthodox Church Christmas which is celebrated on the 7 January.

Rochdalians, mainly of Ukrainian descent but also a few other nationalities, follow the Julian calendar, and Christmas therefore for them comes 13 days later than ours.