Today is Boxing Day, a holiday not named for the box stores that are having Christmas clearance sales. Nor is it named for Glass Joe or the other fine Punch-Out!! fighters.
Boxing Day is, rather, named for the fights you're having with relatives who have overstayed their welcome.
Kidding! No, of course it's the day across the Commonwealth when servants would get Christmas gifts from their employers, given in boxes. Had it become traditional to hand out presents in jars, it would have been called Jarring Day. But that would be silly.
It's also St. Stephen's Day, the feast of the first martyr of the Church, the name of which immediately brings to mind "Good King Wenceslas," the song that describes the good king's miracle on this day. I used to hear "Good King Wenceslas" a lot at Christmastime; not so much anymore. Some songs fall out of favor. I don't think it's a secularization thing, really; other songs that have lost popularity over time include "Christmas Is" and "It's Christmas (All Over the World)." Someone ought to do a revival album of these tunes.
It is interesting that Christmastime is the only time we hear music from across the twentieth century, isn't it? You go in the store and you hear songs from the 20's on. The rest of the year, all modern crap and classic rawk. Whole music idioms have gone down the toilet. But not at Christmastime!
Anyway, if I'm babbling, it's the hangover. Not booze; too much delicious and heavy food, too much running around, and a change in the weather that has struck me with a sinus headache. So it's hangover-like, without my having to worry about whether I started a fight in church, hurled the figgy pudding through a window, or called Aunt Sally a heifer or her son Ethan a useless couch jockey. All was merry and bright.
And I still got a headache. Which is so unfair.
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