Friday, December 26, 2008

Merry Christmas. Happy Boxing Day

Snow Angel


When my family spent a year in Kenya we became acquainted with the British (and post-British colonial) holiday known as Boxing Day. Boxing Day, December 26, (also known as St. Stephen's Day) was originally a day for charity. One can almost see a high-minded British lord giving his servants a special hamper of meats and sweets on Boxing Day. But despite the wonderful tradition, I have now seen another side of Boxing Day also fitting of the moniker. In this era of internet shopping and shipping at the holidays, my Boxing Day was full of breaking down the mountain of cardboard in my kitchen and making repeated trips to the car to pile the recycling. I am happy to report that my kitchen is mostly cardboard free. And now I have only to figure out what St. Stephen would have had to say about it.




We had a wonderful white Christmas complete with snow falling through out the day. The boys were appropriately giddy in the morning and spent most of the rest of the day (post gift opening) laying about amid the assorted fragments of ribbons and packaging and wrapping paper, playing with a few new toys. In the late afternoon our neighbor, Leslie, came over and we all went sledding, flying down the hill farther with each trip as we wore a track through the knee high cover. In the evening, Tim and I took the boys to our friend Ruth's who was celebrating her hundredth Christmas. Together the five of us had dinner, eating from Ruth's beautiful Christmas china, and enjoying the 97 year age span. It was a great end to Christmas day, celebratory and warmly full. I hope you each had a holiday that was warm and bright and truly merry.



Snow Walk on Monday


Happy Boys


Opening Presents


Ruth with her Christmas china


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1 comment:

Kimberly Long Cockroft said...

What a beautiful blog you have, Lindsay. And that's a lot of snow for Missoula--at least, what I experienced of the garden city.

We're had an alternately warm and frigid winter so far, with snow giving way to rain and sun and then just plain cold. Today wasn't all that warm, but I had the get-up-and-go to shovel manure and tidy the compost piles and garden beds in the (literally) freezing rain. Ah, shit--it's good for soil and soul.

BTW, happy birthday, Corin, and happy new year to you all. We think of you often and look forward to some sort of descent on Missoula this summer.

We're loving your gift of soap, by the way; we always do ... especially, now, that amazing--spearmint, is it?

Got to go. Elspeth has, according to Merry, poured all the sugar out on to the floor downstairs.

Blessings this evening.

Martin

January 6, 2009 at 2:38 PM

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