Boxing Day

Xmas is a few days away, but I was thinking not about Xmas but about Boxing Day recently. Boxing Day is an interesting day when I was young and in my teens, boxing day was a day that was a time for visiting relatives and friends that we did not see on Christmas Day. My parents would dress up and we would go off for an afternoon of visiting. In our case, we went to my parent's friends in town and my parents would spend the day drinking and talking with their friends while the children would be forced to hang out with kids we never would hang out with normally.

My wife had a different experience with Boxing Day as it was a day to visit with cousins and relatives who had not made it to the Christmas Day celebrations. When we were first married like most young married couples did we spent part of Christmas with her parents and part of it with my parents when they were still alive.

Two different cultures and I found it hard, not in a bad way, to get used to my the culture my wife and her family held dear at Christmas. My family celebrated Christmas in a small way, with a small ( a maximum of 5 people) family dinner. My wife's family held a large Christmas feast, with never less than 30 people, all relatives in attendance. Boxing Day was a time to visit all of the other relatives who could not make Christmas, and this was achieved by having a great aunt or cousin hold a potluck drop in the afternoon (which lasted until late evening. Once Boxing day was over, then I would take my wife over to the Island to visit with my family for a day. Once that day was over, my birthday would be celebrated by both my family and my wife's family would throw a party for me. Then we would have a day of rest and it would be New Year's Eve, which was always held at my wife's parents house. New Year's day was a time for visiting all the relatives again by going to an afternoon potluck.

It was a hectic time and it became our culture when our kids were young but over time as people became older the traditions started to fade. People passed on, became ill, could not travel, the reasons were realistic but over time we lost the tradition of the big family gathering at Christmas. I miss it. Boxing Day is now an opportunity to line up at the stores for the biggest sale of the year. The day is not the same. Do you have any family traditions that have changed over the years?