Boxing Day
No matter how many arctic air masses they send our way, and no matter how unintelligible their language, we do love Canadians around here. But is also fair to talk about them now, too, since most of them are frozen solid during the half a year they spend at uninhabitable temperatures.
The Canadians who somehow manage to stay thawed in winter honor a great tradition on the day after what we in the rest of the world call “Christmas” of getting into bouts of, well, bouts. Maybe it’s the fisticuffs that keep them motivated not to freeze over. Maybe it’s the drinking to excess. Perhaps it’s because they can’t figure out how to pronounce words like “humour” or “vapour” or “sceptical.” For whatever reason, the come through the other side of Christmas feeling punchy. As they make clear, since they celebrate the day after Christmas as “Boxing Day.”
That’s right: whilst we in America are busy looking up retailers’ policies on merchandise returns, our northern neighbors are celebrating the day by engaging in pugilism. It’s not that we can’t empathize. We’ve all had the urge after ‘twas the season. And the long, frustrating shopping lines drove us to distraction, too. But the calming effects of Christmas dinner’s tryptophan along with the pent-up physical exhaustion from the previous weeks of hectic preparations left us less than eager to come out of our corners swinging.
At any rate, as we in America celebrate (well: there isn’t anything to celebrate) the non-holiday we affectionately call “the day after Christmas” or “back to normal,” our northern friends will presumably be slugging it out in their own traditional tough-man, -woman, and -child activities. We really should admit, though: It’s better to get it all out of your system at once while honouring a national tradition. For those of us in the sunnier, more southern regions—if we want to engage in forced boxing matches—we have to get into electoral politics or at very least try to get booked on a cable TV “news” channel.
I would suppose the day after Boxing Day in Canadia is informally the day of black eyes, dentists, and rhinoplastic surgeons. It’s comforting to know that there will at least be plenty of ice around to apply to any swelling.
Late to the party (still in vacation/travel mode). Hopefully someone already corrected MarqueG68 -- the "boxing" referred, not to pugilism, but to the "boxes" of gifts British nobles would deliver to their servants in gratitude.
Sorry to join late--have been taking it easy today, now that I'm all finished getting ready for Christmas!
Breaking news from Jonah's twitter page: Vet said that lump of Zoe's is benign. Hooray!