Boxing Day, reposted from 2015

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Saturday, December 26. 2020

Boxing Day, reposted from 2015

A Christmas Story

Virginia, your learned friends are wrong.

Hansel and Gretel: losing their religion

What to the Atheist Existentialist Jew is the Meaning of Christmas?

Jingle Hell - The debasement of Christmas songs

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 06:03 | Comments (22) | Trackbacks (0)

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I would go duck hunting on Boxing Day, but by the time I had the Bofors in place, and the outriggers rigged out, it would be time to take it apart again, to haul it home before dark.

#1 SCOTTtheBADGER on 2010-12-26 07:01 (Reply)

I give beer to my trash guys. This is Wisconsin. Of course beer.

#2 class factotum (Link) on 2010-12-26 11:02 (Reply)

Christmastide begins Dec 25 to Jan 5.
Today is also St Steven's Day. The 28th Childermas.

#3 jappy on 2010-12-26 18:36 (Reply)

"He looks like Tiny Tim with that big goose" - That might be the biggest dang goose I ever saw! LMs are pretty big dogs.

As for Boxing Day I would love to see it as a holiday too. I am enjoying this year's Christmas in part because Christmas fell on Sunday and many businesses are closed today. It's like the world is waking up slowly rather than returning to its usual post holiday frenzy.

#4 amanda on 2011-12-26 08:21 (Reply)

Mike Munger recommends against tipping the barista. She'll just use the money to buy more nose rings.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/12/munger_on_fair.html

#5 rhhardin (Link) on 2011-12-26 08:59 (Reply)

I rarely see the same garbage man twice – almost always a different one driving a 100% automated truck – and we have had at least four different mailmen delivering to the house this year.

So I no longer leave a tip. This isn't the Lottery.

#6 Dr. Everett V. Scott (Link) on 2011-12-26 16:50 (Reply)

same here. Fully automated garbage truck with a 5 man crew, different ones every week almost.
Mail? When delivered at all (now down to 4 days a week and there's plans to reduce that "in order to increase customer service") it's a different person each time almost, all day labourers hired for a few days at a time.
About the only constant is the "civil hygiene inspector" driving around town fining people who put out their garbage cans half an hour too early on collection day or pick them up again half an hour too late, and not going to tip her...

#6.1 J.T. Wenting on 2013-12-26 07:28 (Reply)

We had a Canadian neighbor for a few years who extended the already long holidays with Boxing Day. Egads! Just another excuse for more food, drink and frivolity.

As for mail, I spend more time re-delivering parcels and letters than my multiple mail critters. I'm OK with something that belongs a few doors or even a next block away, but many states with no logical connection? A friend's dad went to work for the post office after retiring from the Marines; his stories were hilarious, especially around Christmas. He was in charge of the "point of no return" section…when the only address was "Brother John" or "maklendogobel" in "nallnglenhelnd" or postmarks twenty years old.

#6.1.1 jma on 2013-12-26 09:10 (Reply)

I don't tip the mail carrier because I never have the same one two weeks in a row, don't tip the garbage dudes because I take my own to the transfer station.

If I could get away with it, I wouldn't tip waitresses either - half the time you get lousy service or bad attitudes, but Mrs. TF insists that we pay at least 20% every time.

I don't know where this whole tip thing came from, but it is annoying as hell. When I provide a "service" I don't get tipped when I do a consult or a technical review job that requires a PE, why should they get tipped for doing what they do? :>)

#7 Tom Francis on 2012-12-26 06:23 (Reply)

Because wait people live on their tips. For the garbage man, because he has to deal with all of our nasty crap all year.

#7.1 Bird Dog on 2012-12-26 07:11 (Reply)

I like the idea of Boxing Day too. Plus, a "Boxing Day Sale" sounds like much more fun than just a plain old "After Christmas Sale". If you listen to radio from Canada or the UK, the adverts are just as slick as the ones before Christmas.

As for tipping, our garbage guys are different every week, and we have a couple different ones - one guy comes by for the trash and recycling, and another comes for the compost bucket. SF has a mandatory food scrap/compost ordinance. We get supplied with a separate barrel and just wheel it out to the curb with the other barrels. Compost is available free to city residents - delivery extra.

And the 29th is feast day for St. Thomas á Becket.

#8 KellyM on 2012-12-26 11:37 (Reply)

--been thinking about the film --"A Man for all Seasons" --the conversation he had with his son-in-law to be, early in the film --about the SnL skirting the laws to get'r done, how he'd break every law like chopping down trees to get to the devil and cross arms in a fight.

(invoking vagueness protection clause here)

Thomas then asks the young firebrand, "...and what do do when you chopped down the forest and got to the devil, and he turns 'round on you --what do you do then? Where will you hide?" And another scene near that one, the little rat whose lies later killed the hero, wants a job, wants to be employed, by Thomas. Thomas declines. Kid asks 'why?'

Thomas replies, "Because you cannot, even on the very day, account for yourself."

Ohhhh, OUCH!

#8.1 buddy larsen on 2012-12-27 09:32 (Reply)

"A big goose at my supermarket cost $126 on Christmas Eve, Sheesh."

There's about $12,000 worth of goose tearing up our local park.

#9 forest on 2013-12-27 09:49 (Reply)

"the debasement of Christmas songs"

The only one that really bothers me this year is "Silent Night" with the phrase "round yon virgin mother and child" just omitted! As tho it never was a part of the song, much less the whole point of it. I may go postal!

#10 mary on 2015-12-26 10:45 (Reply)

Funny you should mention that. I went and looked up.the original version in German, and found it rather more to the point. I'd already turned off the radio - I'd been Grinched-out by the day after Thanksgiving - and so Stille Nacht! is the one I've listened to and pondered at length.

#10.1 Phil, Jr. on 2020-12-26 20:36 (Reply)

This may sound nit-picky, but when one escapes the schlock outside and is at last IN church, and finally thinking "Ah, this is it..." and the favourite hymns start, and one starts to sing happily, as one has done since a tiny kid, one suddenly realises that the majority of the people around one are NOT singing...

I am not quite sure if this is because my middle aged voice is not what it once was (the horror, the horror for those nearby) or if the people around me belong to the fur-coated just-visiting-twice-a-year ranks, but what seems clear is that they literally do NOT know the traditional hymns and carols. Not the tunes. Not the words. And if a church doesn't have a really good choir to lead them, they won't dare sing (even if the spirit moves them to). My spouse had the experience a couple of years ago when singing a Christmas carol of one of the visitors turning round and saying "you are singing off key" (I thought "at least he's SINGING) It's this whole business of church as display/performance/consumer object, something to be visited if the show is good enough, and people feeling they can't even rejoice without worrying about it sounding less than perfect.

As for me, our church's choirboy solos Xmas Eve (better than Viennese brats) brought me to tears, so beautiful. But the best Christmas song? An elderly parishioner quavering from her wheelchair, louder than the young family next to her...God's love in her voice, God's love in her arms as she hugs a little girl who comes up to her on the way to communion.

#11 retriever on 2015-12-26 11:21 (Reply)

I seldom comment, but I was moved to do so by your uplifting description of an "elderly parishioner quavering from her wheelchair," singing the best Christmas hymn of all, "with God's love in her voice, God's love in her arms," as she hugs a little girl coming up for communion.

This is the true spirit of Christmas.

#11.1 Wisconsin Roger on 2015-12-26 11:59 (Reply)

We visited a previous pastor who is an interim in southern MA today. I sang the bass parts because I'm not sure I even know the melodies at this point. The congregation was old, and Swedish. A few sang alto. The pastors son, who attends a semi-Christian college stood next to me. I suddenly said to him: "You won't hear this again, not often. These days are at their end. We're the last dinosaurs. You may not like dinosaurs, but you will be one of the last to see them."

#11.2 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2015-12-27 21:17 (Reply)

[i]Groveling at Emory and Oberlin{/i]

1 - What do these kids actually learn when they made these demands and the administrations kowtow to them in every way? Why they learn that most Humanities administrators and academics want to protect their phony baloney jobs and will do anything to keep that tuition money flowing into their coffers. I'm serious, that's what I think it's really all about.

2 - I've often wondered what Dr. King would have made of Shaun King or individuals like Rachel Dolezal or African American students demanding to be segregated from their white and Asian counter parts.

My F-150 Lariat said to me the other day that it self-identified as a Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 and that it wanted its own safe space in the parking lot. I pretended not to hear.

#12 Tom Francis on 2015-12-26 11:39 (Reply)

My Mazda 3 self-identifies as a Stanley Steamer.

#12.1 Frances on 2015-12-26 20:40 (Reply)

Hey, if it will clean the carpets, let it. :)

#12.1.1 Tom Francis on 2015-12-26 21:00 (Reply)

Good to hear from you after so long, Tom!

#12.2 mudbug on 2015-12-26 22:15 (Reply)

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Saturday, December 26. 2020

Boxing Day, reposted from 2015