It's "Boxing Day" - December 26th, the day after Christmas. For most Americans there is no celebration of Boxing Day. It is likely to get a curious "huh?" if we were to even mention it as a day. Also called "St. Stephen's Day", it is the second Christmas day in most of Europe, as well as our neighbors to the north -- that would be Canada.
It might have originated as a part of the Christmas celebration for the poor...mainly when business owners gave their workers Christmas bonuses in the form of fruits and goodies in boxes. It was, in England, a practice for workers to carry boxes to their employers on the day after Christmas where then employers would put coins in the box as year end gifts -- sort of end of the year bonuses. Another English tradition has it that the poor often worked on Christmas day and so the day after Christmas was their day to open boxes given to them by their Lords and hence was their Christmas celebration.
Interestingly, it was also a part of tradition that the Church often broke open their boxes in which people had given alms to the poor on this day after Christmas so that the coins to be distributed to the poor.
Americans celebrate boxing day with old-fashioned consumerism (don't we celebrate everything that way?).
It is the busiest "return merchandise" day of the year. The stores that sold a booty of pre-holiday merchandise throw open the doors to welcome a ton of it back and to hopefully sell out a whole lot more of discounted stuff in hopes that they can clear out their merchandise.
Well...regardless of what the purpose is, it is MY day to reflect upon my English daughter - Lindsay. I quite like the English. I have been to England quite a few times, dating back to my first trip in 1992. Little did I know that my trips to England would result in my daughter, Lindsay, meeting a Brit - Peter Osborne -- and the two of them getting married -- about 16 months ago. Last Christmas Lindsay and Peter came to the states -- what I call "home" -- even though it is not their home. Their home is in Bristol, England, or to be exact in "Almondsbury", which seems to be a very small village on a busy thoroughfare between Bristol and Thornbury. I loved having them here last year for our Christmas family celebration. I even made it a point to wish them a "Happy Boxing Day" -- which I had no idea of whether that was an appropriate greeting for that day or not.
This Christmas I had to settle for Lindsay and Peter via a webcam and the internet. Don't get me wrong, I loved seeing them on the web cam as they celebrated Christmas with us live through cyber-space. I am happy that I could see her face and watch her and Peter laugh a bit with us. The "us" was the rest of the family -- Kelly and Greg, from Chicago; Chris and Sarah, from Madison; Andrew, from right here at home; and of course Linda and I. We had gathered on Christmas eve day to celebrate: translated that means eat a lot of food, play games, watch some football -- ok, a lot of football, and have fun. We decided we'd open presents at night and so at 7:00 p.m. our time, 1:00 a.m. Christmas Day, Peter and Lindsay's time, we met online. The web cam worked wonderfully...and I loved every minute of it.
I had forgotten how beautiful Lindsay looks. I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have been surprised either at how much I wanted to reach across the web right into their living room, just so I could hold her for a few minutes and tell her that I loved her and missed her. I suppose that is what Dads are suppose to do; but I felt it ever so deeply that evening.
What I want to do is just let her know how much I love her and miss her...more than I can say even in a blog.
SO...Happy Boxing Day honey. I feel poor without you here. I love you and miss you, but I am also happy for you and Peter. The English, as far as I'm concerned, get a beautiful boxing day present.
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