Christmas in January. Reluctant to remove these decorations? You are not alone.

It was 21 nights after Christmas, when the whole house

Not a single tape was disturbed, by human or mouse

The stockings were carefully hung from the chimney,

Even if São Nicolau had already been there.

In New Jersey homes, Christmas decorations last until January. With a month to go until Valentine’s Day, locals say they are in no hurry to dismantle their trees, lights and home decorations.

Some say the timing is right for the course, given their longstanding love for the holiday. Others suspect that their reticence may have something to do with the COVID-19 pandemic that raises its 2020 year.

Linda Albelli adorned every nook and cranny of her Victorian home in Closter from Black Friday, using the memories of the holiday she collected over 40 years.

She has three Christmas trees – one big and two small.

“It is not loud,” says Albelli. “I just love it.”

Among friends and family, she is known for her “Christmas addiction”.

“I’m already planning for next year,” Albelli, 66, told NJ Advance Media.

But three weeks after December 25, all the pieces of your Christmas decor – from the socks in the fireplace to the baubles and pine cones in the dining room, gingerbread cookies in the kitchen and ribbons in the cupboards – are still there.

When will she start to dismantle the Christmas decorations?

“Maybe at the end of January,” she says. “Definitely after the inauguration.”

In fact, Albelli changed his Christmas countdown calendar with a countdown to January 20 – Induction Day.

For Albelli, this moment is not so different from his usual day of defeat, the day of Martin Luther King Jr. (January 18). So, in a way, the pandemic did not affect his routine. But in another, it completely changed the tradition.

Since COVID-19 meant that she couldn’t see her loved ones the way she normally would at home, Albelli considered not decorating much this year. When she presented the idea to Don, her 41-year-old husband, the first to respond, a volunteer from the rescue squad, quickly dissuaded her, with visions of Christmas trees dancing in her eyes.

“He is the master of the tree lights and outside,” said Albelli, and has always loved going to choose a live tree. In the end, she ended up devoting a significant amount of time and attention to her vacation setup.

“I think I probably did more than usual and I’m in no hurry to take it down,” she says.

After all, she says, the tree is still “drinking water”. And each day, she can wake up to see him standing there, evoking joy and tranquility.

“It is simply edifying,” says Albelli. A year and a half ago, she was fired from her job as an editorial coordinator at a school book publisher. Now she works as a waitress a few days a week at the same cafeteria where she worked when she was 15.

Each Christmas ornament and souvenir is not just a bauble or accessory, she says – it is a memory. As she pulls them out of storage each year, she relieves those memories, one by one.

“A small piece of them is still with me,” said Albelli of the people who gave them to her, whether they died or she simply cannot see them because of the pandemic. Gifts from her daughters when they were children, and those moments in time, come back to life, even if only for a month and a half.

“It warms my heart,” she says.

Jonathan Caspi, a therapist and professor of family science and human development at Montclair State University, says he can see Christmas lights as an answer to “feel like there’s not much to wait for.”

The pandemic generated an indefinite feeling of uncertainty. Why not fill it with a few extra weeks of holiday cheer?

“There are always some people who keep them awake for a long time,” says Caspi. “I was able to see people this year wanting to get more attached to good things.”

Even though the decorations can act as a kind of security blanket in a tumultuous year, he advises people to identify with family members or people in the house if they intend to leave them awake for a while after the holiday. And it raises the question of how long is too long.

“Maybe keeping them awake all the time takes some of that away,” says Caspi, making it less special in some way. He suggests to dispel some of the post-holiday blues by planning socially distant encounters with friends or taking a walk to change the scene.

“We don’t necessarily have to fall into the trap of, ‘Oh, we have nothing to wait for,'” says Caspi.

Jeremy Eisengrein, a communications professional who lives in Spring Lake, definitely sees a Christmas break in his community. For his part, Eisengrein, left a small “agnostic” crown on his door.

“To be honest, I kind of like that. I don’t see why we can’t maintain the joy of the holiday in January, ”he says.

Eisengrein, 27, recently moved to Hoboken’s Monmouth County district, following a trend of people leaving their communities adjacent to New York after the pandemic defeated the city’s displacements.

Although he thinks the prolonged holiday interlude is a kind of escape from the sometimes relentless reality of early 2021, he knows it can irritate people.

“I realized that it bothered some neighbors,” he says.

Ornaments hung from the ceiling in Lisa Pasechnick’s living room in Hillsdale. A small Christmas tree is flanked by two Santa Claus. Above, strands of rainbow lights cover the front windows, while illuminated snowflakes glow in icy white.

“It’s not about being lazy,” she says. “I like it.”

Pasechnick she says her sister-in-law texted her husband, Mark, to ask when they were going to turn off the lights.

“He said never,” she says.

Post-Christmas decorations were a bright spot in a dark time for the family.

Pasechnick, 59, has been visiting his 95-year-old mother in rehab after she suffered a stroke and fractured her ankles in the New Year.

Seeing the warm glow of the colorful lights in the dogwood outside is like a balm.

“I need it now,” she says of the holiday’s joy. “I am not going to take them down.”

Pasechnick worked as a chef and brand ambassador at Bloomingdale’s, but lost his job due to the pandemic. After she developed symptoms of COVID-19 in April, her family contracted the coronavirus. And then there is the state of the country.

“We are not exactly in times of peace,” says Pasechnick. “And I don’t care what my neighbors think.”

She has two Christmas trees – one with cat-friendly fiber optics at home and the other living on the porch. He’s not going anywhere. In fact, Pasechnick puts hearts on it on Valentine’s Day.

“One year I hung Easter eggs on it,” she says.

Scott Churchson and his wife are also still rolling around with their tree and lights in Lodi. Usually, the decorations disappear a few days after the New Year.

“With COVID being the way it is and the kind of things that a lot of people go through, you need everything you can to make a psychological escape,” he says. “It was such a strange Christmas that, in a bizarre way, it looks like we didn’t have it.”

Then there is 2021 – rebellion and precipitation on the Capitol.

“How naive we were to say ‘Out with 2020!’” Says Churchson, 45, who works on radio and TV.

He’s a big fan of what his Christmas scene looks like, but he’s not very interested in putting it together – or taking it down.

“Theoretically, we are going to solve this this weekend,” he says.

After all, says Churchson, Christmas is only 49 weeks away.

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Amy Kuperinsky can be contacted at [email protected] and followed in @AmyKup on twitter.