Happy Boxing Day

Today is Boxing Day - a peculiarly English holiday which has spread as far as Wales. This was the servants' Christmas - if my understanding of the holiday is correct. In years past, stores were shut up tighter than a drum on Boxing Day just as they would be on Christmas Day. But like their American cousins, retailers now see the day after Christmas as a grand, grand day to fling open their stores in a bacchanalia of consumerism.

I succombed and dragged the Vol-in-Law out to a PC store to look at super cheap laptops. (Yeah, turns out there were only 10 per store and they were long, long gone). The ViL was a little hungover from our Christmas with a friend up the road - and did not fulfill his supporting shopper role as well as he might have. The parking lot was full and full of enraged customers. Most people just glared at one another, but one fellow shared with me the traditional post-Christmas parking hand gestures. So full of holiday cheer we escalated to exchanging the traditional day-after-Christmas parking greeting of "Fuck You". I however, was restrained, and did not actually roll down the window.

We left without making a significant purchase and returned home to paint our Christmas toys. VolMom sent us some paint-your-own garden gnomes. The Vol-in-Law was less than thrilled as he is stridently anti-yard art. I'm sure he views this as a betrayal from his mother-in-law, as my mom has always told him to take care of me, but never to let me fill the garden with tacky statuary - as to tell the truth, would be my wont.


My (unfinished) gnome is on the left, the Vol-in-Law's is on the right and the camel - once filled with oasis and used for a florist's bouquet is used for paintbrush water.




The ViL's gnome on its own.



And released into its new home - a very, very dark corner of our garden.