Boxing Day

We have a fine tradition of Boxing Day, at least.  Our next door neighbors, Canadians of great generosity, have always invited us for Boxing Day dinner.  My conceit is that we get to be the peasants who are invited in the night after the feast to share the leftovers.  It’s like some variant of having Elijah coming in for the Passover Dinner.  But, of course, they don’t think we’re peasants, they don’t treat us as peasants, and it is usually the actual turkey dinner that we are invited for, even if it is often held on Boxing Day.

The other Boxing Day tradition up here, I think, is one that I’ve never participated in: the going to the stores for the Boxing Day discounts.  In fact, this may well be the primary Boxing Day tradition: you go to the stores, buy up tons of goods on deep discount, and take your boxes/packages home with you.  By contrast, we never get the leftovers of the holiday feast put into little boxes for us to take home.

Never going to a Boxing Day sale is one of the things that is easy to accomplish when you live in an out-of-the-way part of the country.  There aren’t that many things that I need or want a lot extra of, at least the things that are on sale.  If they knocked 50% off  the price of eggs or imported cheese or smoked sausage, I’d be more interested, I suppose.  But for now, Boxing Day is, like Christmas Day, a day that doesn’t require you to do much of anything prior to dinner time, when you put on clean clothes and present yourself to the neighbors’ table. 

This year, though, the dinner had a touch of sadness, as the neighbors have put their house up for sale and we are about to do the same, and there probably won't be another Boxing Day dinner at the neighbors for us. But what is not in the future doesn't overcome what was in the past.  Thanks, Don and Jean, for always being there for us.