Happy Boxing Day (?)

Growing up in Canada, the day after Christmas is Boxing Day (and also in most of the current and former UK). Not a true holiday, but for some reason still sort of a big deal. And a statutory holiday in Ontario, at least when I was young, which meant "real" Christmas -- everyone off and visiting, etc. -- spanned two full days.

The folk etymology for the name has something to do with actual fighting, but that's clearly bogus. As kids, we thought it was called Boxing Day because it was the day we dragged all the boxes from Christmas out to the trash. Turns out it's much older: I of course looked on The Interwebs, and The Google says that money was collected for the poor during the holiday season, in alms-boxes placed in churches, and this money was distributed during to the poor and needy on the day after Christmas. Somehow those alms-boxes became "Boxing Day" (sounds more like it should be Un-Boxing Day!).

Thus endeth the lesson.

We spent the last 48 hours lying low, not wanting to ruin anyone else's holiday by being depressive. Watched a bunch of movies, but even that's hard -- way too many trenchant references, from the daughter heading off to college in "The Kids Are All Right" to, well, almost every part of "Mother and Child". Heck, even the last bit of "Forrest Gump" (on cable) was rough, with him meeting young Forrest. "Salt" was good escapism, at least.

Today it's back to work, such as it is -- this will be a very quiet week, with most folks off. This is good. We hope to see some friends as we can stand to, and to otherwise just keep on keepin' on.

We have been blessed beyond all logic with friends, and I will write more about that when I can figure out how to begin to do the topic justice.