You know my favourite day of the year?
Christmas and birthdays are special but the one that tops them all is Boxing Day.
My plans usually amount to absolutely nothing.
If at all possible, the goal is to stay in pyjamas, or at the very least the comfiest of clothes, to not go anywhere and – aside from the people I live with – to not see anyone.
Another key element is eating anything at all on a day when rules need not apply and all the festive treats lie in wait.
A trio of Ferrero Rochers with blue cheese and oatcakes on the side for breakfast you say? Certainly.
A chocolate orange for lunch and turkey leftovers on a toasted sandwich with cranberry and bread sauce for supper? You betcha.
Anything goes and the unfinished bottle of fizz in the fridge quickly does.
Boxing Day memories came flooding back
On Boxing Day, I live the kind of family life and experience the kind of moments that I wish I could enjoy every day.
My youngest suggested a pillow fight this year and looked incredulous when I didn’t say “maybe later, mummy’s got to tidy up”, but instead replied “sure, let’s go”.
Later, Ghostbusters was on and we settled down to watch.
It stirred up memories and questions, depending on the age of the viewer.
My husband remembered seeing it with his gran in 1984 at The Old Vic in Dundee.
And then I remembered going there on a first (kind of) date with him, aged 13.
Okay it took him another 20 years to ask me out. But I guess he was playing it cool.
“Why is everyone smoking?” Chester, 8, asked as he watched Bill Murray and Co take on Slimer and Marshmallow Man.
It was a good question. But then, Ghostbusters belonged to an era where everyone puffed away in the cinema itself.
My husband also remembered being very young and going to see a Disney film at a cinema in the Ferry, where the smoke was so thick you could hardly see from one end of a row to the other.
How times have changed, for better and worse.
Everything changes but Boxing Day is still about love
No smoke in enclosed places like cinemas and train carriages is a good thing.
But in so many other areas, life has changed in less welcome ways.
Technology has taken us to a place where human contact and connections are being lost.
How many banks have closed because we can do almost anything online?
How many department stores are even left?
And while we’re at it, how many kids know what a bar of soap is because they’ve only seen the liquid dispenser type?
I grant you this last one is more personal (my youngest had never seen a bar of soap until recently) than profound.
But still, the important things – the very essence of what makes us human, alive and connected – do not.
They’re the Boxing Day things like laughing together at the fall guy in the film, falling out over a board game and, of course, love.
Greatest gift costs nothing
There were huge extremes across Dundee this Christmas.
Some had lots and others little.
Thank goodness for the likes of Help For Kids, Togs for Tots and the many food banks and larders across the city who gave to those in need this year.
But no matter the gifts – whether plentiful or sparse – it will always be true that making your child feel special, telling them they can achieve great things and to dream big, is the greatest gift of all.
As I read that back, it sounds a little cheesy. But it’s also true.
And let’s not be a Scrooge about it… sometimes we adults need to be told we’re special too.
So merry Christmas to you, I’ll see you in 2023 and roll on Boxing Day next year.
Until then, remember how special you are.
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