The Boxer

Christmas Box on Ye!

Thus did my wife's relatives greet each other the day after, upon St. Stephen's Day, the daybreak after Christmas.
For it was Boxing Day.

There are many explanations of the term "Boxing Day", ranging from the servants downstairs giving and getting Christmas boxes upon this day as they rested from the chores of the 25th, all the way to imaginings about the Marquis of Queensbury.

I prefer to think of it as they day when, having received largish blocks of fun as gifts, the children begin to explore the many and varied playful uses of the immense packing boxes in which the gifts came.
Boxing Day is Irony. I am obsessed by irony, especially the ironic reversal from the gaudium of gifts to the castles of cardboard.

At any rate, Boxing Day is well named, for there are boxes, and there also is a goodly sized element of sparring back and forth.

I have some posts to make, but She-who-must-be-obeyed has an entire Jumanji safari of places, which I usually avoid, to go to today. Maybe that's what the season is all about, going places and doing things out of the ordinary in your life. I mean, I actually bought my younger brother a present.
Of course, he was immediately suspicious. Probably still is.

How was Christmas Dinner at my mother's?

My elder brother called at two in the afternoon to tell me they were starting their trip, and that a niece and her salad were not going to show up, appearance-at-the-festive-table-wise, due to an untimely onset of flu.
We would be an entire salad short for 15 people.

By that time, I knew how the wind blew, so I said that it was already a disaster, and a missing salad would not be noticed, really... perhaps we could create a "faux salad"  (or is that "fausse salade"?) out of bric-a-brac, and trompe-l'oeil the heck out of everybody!

And a nephew (not one of the trinity of nephews whose names begin with the letter "A") had become engaged, and was there with his fiancee. However, he confided in my mother, expecting her to share the news, but she told no one.
So there we were with hearty "Merry Christmas" on the tip of the tongue, but scant a "Congratulations!" or a "Huzzah!" or "It's about time!"
No celebratory champagne, or anything like that.

Had I known, I might have paid closer attention and actually have bought potato chips to go with the dip.
Maybe.
I did have a heart-to-heart with some nieces who were wondering why grandma always says picky things about their fingernail designs. I think I handled it well.

Merry Boxing!

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