For my American friends, let me explain.

Boxing Day is December 26. When I was a kid, I thought that it had to do with all the boxes and ripped up wrapping paper left after the festivities. Boxing Day was the day we had to clean up. I also had some notion that it might mean packing Christmas up. Since Christmas came out of a box, a box of decoration, perhaps traditionally people packed Christmas up on Boxing Day. I also had a notion that in olden days, December 26 had some big sporting event – boxing – and that, as with Christmas Eve hockey – December 26 boxing became such a big tradition there was a day named after it.

But even though we were instructed that Boxing Day was for cleaning up, it wasn’t that. And it wasn’t any of the other things I had thought up either. The term Boxing Day is mostly used these days in the expression “Boxing Day Sale” which usually lasts, mysteriously, about a week. I have never in my life, incidentally, felt inclined to go shopping the day after Christmas. Not very much could get me out shopping on December 26th. Yes, perhaps the Nikon D70 for $100, which, sadly, I did not get for Christmas.

In the 17th Century, a Christmas box was something like a piggy bank which was sent around the office for donations. When it was full, the box was broken, and the money therein was distributed, perhaps around the company, perhaps to the less fortunate. By the 18th Century, Christmas box came to mean any seasonal gratuity or charity. It’s unclear why the expression is reserved for December 26th. Perhaps this, at least originally, was the day the money was collected. Or perhaps distributed.

Besides learning the true meaning of Boxing Day, I have also learned that diabetics should not try to revive the Christmas spirit by assembling ginger bread houses. First, the kit comes with so much candy. Second, the icing gets all over the place and the easiest way to clean as you go is to lick it off your fingers. And finally, now that I have a crude ginger bread house – my first one ever – I have no idea what to do with it. I really don’t think I should eat it. Murphy has busied herself eyeing it suspiciously.

I am spent on Christmas. No more Christmas. Clickety-click Barba trick.

SS