When Should You Take Down Christmas Lights?
Tradition says Twelfth Night — January 5 or 6, depending on how you count the twelve days of Christmas. Most DFW HOAs that set a deadline put it somewhere in January. The practical answer: have them down by mid-January, on a dry day — before the lights have been outdoors much past the roughly 90 days seasonal lighting is intended for, and before North Texas ice gets a vote. Our full-service customers don't decide at all: takedown in January is included.
There are three clocks running on your roofline: a church calendar several centuries old, a covenant document your HOA recorded at the county, and the North Texas weather. They mostly agree, which is convenient. Here is what each one actually says.
What tradition says: Twelfth Night
The traditional Christmas season is twelve days long. The Church of England puts it plainly: Christmas lasts twelve days and culminates in the feast of the Epiphany on January 6, which recalls the visit of the Magi (churchofengland.org, checked October 2026). Britannica defines Twelfth Night as the evening before Epiphany.
So why do people argue about January 5 versus January 6? Arithmetic. Count Christmas Day as day one and the twelfth day is January 5. Start counting the day after Christmas and it is January 6, Epiphany itself. Both conventions are in everyday use — English Heritage, hedging sensibly, gives Twelfth Night as "around 6 January." For the coming season, January 5, 2027 is a Tuesday and January 6 is a Wednesday. Pick one; nobody is checking.
For Catholic households in the United States the liturgical season runs a little longer still: the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops describes Christmas Time as lasting up to and including the Sunday after Epiphany (usccb.org, checked October 2026).
The older answer: Candlemas, February 2
If January 6 feels abrupt, history is on your side. According to English Heritage, Candlemas — February 2, forty days after Christmas — was observed as the official end of Christmas in medieval England. The charity, citing its senior properties historian Dr Michael Carter, calls the idea that decorations are bad luck after Twelfth Night "a modern invention."
The older superstition ran the other way. Robert Herrick's seventeenth-century poem "Ceremony Upon Candlemas Eve" warns that greenery left up past Candlemas means goblins in the house, one per forgotten leaf (english-heritage.org.uk, checked October 2026). Herrick was writing about holly and ivy, not C9 bulbs, and the goblins are optional.
| Clock | Take-down point | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Twelfth Night | January 5 or 6 | The twelve days of Christmas, ending at Epiphany — the familiar modern custom |
| Candlemas | February 2 | The medieval English end of the Christmas season, per English Heritage |
| Your HOA | Usually a date in January | Your community's recorded covenants or design guidelines |
| The hardware | Roughly 90 days after install | The temporary-use period seasonal lighting is intended for |
The tradition rows are custom, not obligation. The HOA row is the only one that can arrive as a letter.
What your HOA says
This is the clock with consequences, and the legal reading is already done. Our guide to HOA Christmas light rules in DFW covers what Texas law says and how to check your own community in ten minutes. The short summary of that guide:
- Associations can regulate ordinary decorative lights through properly adopted, properly recorded covenants — and display dates are one of the things those covenants cover.
- The window takes one of two forms: a fixed season, or a set number of days before and after the holiday.
- The removal end lands in January almost universally in the published DFW community standards checked for that guide.
One published example, cited in that guide: Stonebridge Ranch in McKinney allows residential holiday lights from November 1 through January 31, per the association's published guidelines. That is a generous window. Yours may be shorter.
Your documents govern, not this page. The date that applies to your address is the one in your community's recorded covenants and guidelines. Search them for holiday, seasonal, decoration, and lighting, and write down the removal date. We hang lights for a living; we don't practice law, and none of this is legal advice.
The practical answer for DFW: mid-January, on a dry day
Seasonal lights are built for a season. Ordinary plug-in holiday light strings are a temporary-use product — that is how the Consumer Product Safety Commission's own rule on seasonal and decorative lighting defines them (16 CFR Part 1120). The International Association of Electrical Inspectors spells out what temporary means: the National Electrical Code's temporary-installation rule, section 590.3(B), allows holiday decorative lighting to stay in place for up to 90 days, and UL's guide information says seasonal decorative lighting strings are not intended to be used for more than 90 days per year (IAEI Magazine, "Electrical Safety Tips for the Holidays," checked October 2026).
Run the calendar on that. A display hung on November 1 reaches day 90 on January 29. Lights listed for outdoor use are evaluated to endure the weather they will meet — sunlight, wind, sleet, rain — for that kind of stretch, not for a Texas spring and summer on a south-facing roofline. If what you want is light on the house year-round, that is a different product category; our permanent vs. seasonal guide covers it.
North Texas winter does not end with December. The National Weather Service's Fort Worth office documents a multi-day sleet and freezing-rain event across North and Central Texas from January 30 through February 1, 2023. DFW Airport recorded 1.3 inches of sleet on January 31 — a record for the date — and the region saw several hundred traffic accidents on iced roads (weather.gov/fwd, checked October 2026). A roofline is not where you want to be that week.
Which gives the practical rule: choose a dry, calm day in the first half of January and get it done. That honors Twelfth Night give or take a week, lands inside the January deadlines DFW communities typically publish, keeps the hardware close to its intended run, and beats the late-January weather to the ladder. Never work on a wet, frosted, or icy roof. No tradition is worth that.
Taking Lights Down Without Wrecking Them (or You)
Wait for a dry, still day
Dry roof, dry ladder rungs, dry ground, little wind. If there is frost or ice anywhere on the house, the lights can wait — go in the afternoon, after any morning frost is gone.
Unplug everything first
Power off at the outlet or timer before you touch a strand, and disconnect the runs from each other as you go. Nothing on the roofline should be live while you are handling it.
Set the ladder like it matters
Firm, level ground — not a flowerbed — and move the ladder rather than leaning out to reach. The CPSC's standing advice is to use caution any time you stand on a ladder to handle decorations. If the roofline needs an extension ladder and you are alone, stop there.
Unclip, don't pull
Release each clip by hand. Yanking a strand down by the cord stresses the wire and the sockets, and it is hard on gutters and shingle edges too.
Inspect and label as you go
The CPSC's checklist for any light set, new or old: look for broken or cracked sockets, frayed or bare wires, and loose connections. Discard what fails. Tag each good run with where it lives — "front gable, left" — so next November starts with a map.
Coil loosely, dry, then box
Wrap each run in wide loops around a reel or a piece of cardboard — no tight bends, no kinks at the sockets. Let everything dry fully before it goes into a tote, and store the totes somewhere you can find them.
Taking lights down is the same ladder work as putting them up, with colder hands. In the CPSC's holiday-decorating injury data, falls are the most frequent kind of incident; the numbers are in our DIY vs. professional guide, along with the honest cases where doing it yourself is the right call.
Or Skip the Question Entirely
North Texas Christmas Light Installation runs a full-service program, which means the takedown is not your job. The lights are ours — commercial-grade C9 LED, custom-cut to your roofline and mounted with clips — and one seasonal price covers the design, installation, in-season repair visits, takedown in January, and off-season storage.
- No ladder in January. Our crew put the lights up, and our crew takes them down.
- No totes in the attic. Storage is our problem, and so is the condition of every run before it goes back up next season.
- No February letter. A January takedown sits inside the removal windows DFW communities typically publish. If yours has a specific deadline, tell us the date when you book.
The details are on the roofline lighting page, and the DFW cost guide publishes the market ranges — full-service C9 LED runs $5–$12 per linear foot across the metroplex, with most homes landing between $700 and $2,500+. For a number on your own roofline, quotes are free. Book as early as you can: by late October, calendars across DFW are genuinely tight, and November callers often land on waitlists.
Takedown Questions, Answered
When should you take down Christmas lights?
Tradition points to Twelfth Night — January 5 or January 6, depending on whether you count Christmas Day as the first of the twelve days. Most DFW homeowners associations that set a removal deadline put it somewhere in January. The practical answer for North Texas is mid-January, on a dry and calm day, before the display has been outdoors much longer than the roughly 90 days seasonal lighting is intended for.
Is it bad luck to leave Christmas lights up after January 6?
That is a tradition, not a rule of nature — and a fairly recent one. English Heritage's historians describe the belief that decorations bring bad luck after Twelfth Night as a modern invention; in medieval England the season ran to Candlemas on February 2. If your household keeps Twelfth Night, take them down then. If it does not, the only deadlines that can actually cost you anything are your HOA's and the weather's.
Can my HOA fine me for leaving lights up?
That depends on your community's recorded governing documents, which are the rules that actually apply to your address. Texas associations can regulate ordinary decorative lights, including display dates, through properly adopted and recorded covenants, and the DFW communities that publish a removal deadline generally set it in January. Whether a fine applies, and how it works, is in your own documents — read them, and see our HOA Christmas light rules guide for what Texas law says. This is general information, not legal advice.
Is it bad for Christmas lights to stay up all year?
Yes, for ordinary seasonal light strings. The International Association of Electrical Inspectors notes that the National Electrical Code's temporary-installation rule allows holiday decorative lighting to stay in place for up to 90 days, and that UL's guide information says seasonal decorative lighting is not intended to be used for more than 90 days per year. A string left on a North Texas roofline through spring and summer is being asked to do a job it was never evaluated for.
Do I have to take the lights down myself if I hire a professional installer?
With full-service installation, no. One seasonal price covers the design, the commercial-grade C9 LED lights, installation, in-season repair visits, takedown in January, and off-season storage. The lights are ours, so removing them, checking them, and storing them until next season is our job rather than yours.
Up in November. Down in January. Not Your Job Either Time.
Free quote for your roofline — takedown and storage are already in the price.
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