December 26, 2005

• Sleep and avoid watching TV.
• We celebrate it here in the Bahamas too, but in a really fun way. Junkanoo started way back in the days of slavery, when the slaves were given some time off during the Christmas season. Some stories say that they were only allowed to celebrate during the hours between sunset and sunrise because there were lots of things to be done during daylight hours. So in the wee hours of the morning they would break out the drums and bells and dress up in costumes and just go nuts with some pretty fabulous music and intense celebration. I was personally awoken by a small Junkanoo parade outside my window very early on Christmas morning. On my little island we have a planned parade on New Years Day at 5:30AM (there will be no sleeping that night) and other Junkanoo gatherings sporadically happen throughout the year. The best place to experience it is on Nassau, where bands that have been practicing all year long compete in a huge parade. Though I think it's pretty fun to see the little kids here on this island with drums twice their size banging away to the Junkanoo beat. If you've ever experienced it, you know how completely infectious it is. Loud drum beats, bells and horns, elaborate costumes, and dancing. Everyone dances. Even the little American girl. Badly, but she dances :) And the next time you're down here, take a closer look at the label of the local beer, Kalik. The beer gets its name from the sound that the cow bells make in Junkanoo music and just at the top of the label you'll see two cowbells Ka-licking together. And although Eleutheran pineapple is hands-down the best pineapple on earth, I like Kalik best with lime.
• Aha, that explains why the U.S. Post Office and the places downtown were closed. It's Boxing Day!
• I am a retail manager in consumer electronics, the category that sort-of started this whole post-Christmas buying frenzy. Wehad 20 $1.oo DVD players today. No one got shot. I also had 5 42-inch plasmas for $978, and 8 27-inch SONY Vega tubes for $247. Head office only wanted a 17% increase this year, after we had an incredible 14% increase last year. This, in a market where retailers are happy to get 3-5% increases. Amazingly we CRUSHED our target of $192,000 at about 4 pm. Right now we are sitting at $210,000 and change, with a few more big deals being hammered out.WE'll likey finush at about $225,000, on the day, that's a 6000 sq ft store with 15 staff. With an hour to go we are having huge fun, and are now actively mocking the idiots who want to know if they can order one of the limited quantity door-crasherloss-leader items, or if they can get a better deal on something already way below cost, or asking what's on sale today. The best one was the moron who wanted to finance a $74 DVD player over 36 months. Obviously he was unclear on the concept; I told him to see about getting a second mortgage on his house, instead. 10 minutes later he almost gave my rookie cashier a cardial infarcation when he got up to the till after waiting in line for 20 minutes, (having been blown off by every sales-person and manager in the store), and wanted to finance a $19 screen-cleaning kit, which is actually nothing more than blue-coloured water ( alcohol Free!) and a scrap of velour. Anywaze, my boss is happy, head office is happy, and I only have 5 more 14 hour days to go.
• St. Stephens Day=Boxing Day
• St. Stephen's Day in Ireland only. I spent it working :-(
• Alas, no Boxing Day here in the States. This country is much much too consumer-oriented to have a relaxing holiday on one of the biggest shopping days of the year! THE STORES MUST BE OPEN AND THE MASSES MUST SHOP.
• kittenhead: In Canada, Boxing Day is the 2nd largest shopping day of the year. We have the worst of both worlds, a "relaxing" day where we have to shop till we drop. And for those working in retail, as PareidoliaticBoy said it's a zoo, people line up for hours in the early morning to get the loss leader deep discounts... BUY NOW, ONLY $89.99!!! Sorry, quantities are limited to 8 per store Local news estimated 800,000 people went shopping in B.C. yesterday (out of 3.9 million).
• Unfortunately seven people were mowed down in Toronto when a gunfight broke out between two groups of teens and young adults on one of the busiest shopping streets in the city, on the 2nd biggest shopping day of the year. One fifteen-year old girl shopping with her parents was killed, another is critical, and five injured. None of those shot were part of the gunfight.
• Good god. Shows you what I know about Boxing Day: absolutely nothing. That, and that somehow I skipped PareidoliaticBoy's post entirely due to my too-fast scrollbar setting. I need to not be so hasty as to hit "post" next time. My apologies.
• St. Stephen's Day in Ireland only. St. Stephen's Day is a venerable and widespread European holiday, as mentioned in the old carol: Good King Wenceslaus looked out Upon the feast of Stephen When the snow lay round about Deep and crisp and even...etc.
• What bugs me about the Toronto shooting Moneyjane, is the response from the police. Their spokesman says "It was a tragic loss and a tragic day, I say tragic because it's a day when Toronto has finally lost its innocence." Innocence? Toronto? Puhleeze. Yeah, it's all about the T Dot, not that the 15 year old girl was shot in the head in front of her family. I say tragic because there's an innocent victim with a grieving family and yet everyone is lining up with their hand out for more money or ready to cast blame. I haven't read one quote yet that shows any sensitivity for the family. Our leading politicians who are in the middle of an election campaign and have the chance to look like real people. But they can do nothing but recite party rhetoric. I expected at least the NDP might show some humanity, but no.
• With time to reread my last comment, I think I threadjacked my own thread. Deep breath... My apologies for the outburst, all. Not the time or place. I really am curious about traditions around Boxing Day or St. Stephens Day, as the case may be. My mother once told me that Boxing Day in her youth (pre 1940) was a time set aside for visiting friends and neighbours.
• Cripes. That is terrible news Moneyjane. I was being a bit facetious with my remark that no one got shot. It was a passsing reference to a riot a couple years back in the U.S. on Black Friday, when someone got shot over a $38 DVD player. The inference was that we are so much more civilized up here. I guess not.
• I hadn't actually read that bit but yeah...WTF? That shooting is a serious case of dumbfuckery. I heard some of the shooters were in a car, and that it might have been some kind of gang-related drive-by.
• I have a Scottish/English heritage, only one or two generations removed from the "old country". My own Christmas memories are definitely Dickensian in flavour, as was the tradition of Boxing Day. It's origins were described to me as corresponding closely to this description. As a teenager in the 70's, I was the first person in my family to sacrifice the family tradition of what was a day of rest to engage in bargain hunting. I suppose that my reward was inevitable. I stumbled on a reference to this also being an usurption of an ancient Greek or Roman gifting tradition, as are many of our of our current rituals and festivals. Alas, I can no longer find that link.
• Boxing Day used to be a day on which householders and/or apartment dwellers gave a gratuity to the folk like the doorman, postman, dustman, paper boy, milkman, grocer's delivery man, coal delivery man, etc whose service interfaced with one's household but who were not of the household. This Victorian holdover was still common when I was growing up in aome localities but as such services dwindled away it has, too. The only one of those household services remaining now seems to be the poatman.
• Beeswacky used "interface" as a verb. *is deeply surprised*
• About our interface, 'tis true I verbed it. Recognizing silence, how it closes how it opens I find I door you. ;]
• I a door you too.
• St. Stephen's Day in Ireland only. St. Stephen's Day is a venerable and widespread European holiday, as mentioned in the old carol: Good King Wenceslaus looked out Upon the feast of Stephen When the snow lay round about Deep and crisp and even...etc. Of course I know that. I am saying we don't observe it as boxing day.
• What I want to know is, what happened to the feasting?
• Alas, the appetites of the squirrels are unbounded.
• Hmmm boxing day in Australia - more beer - the start of the SYdney to Hobart Yacht race (for non-oz monkeys that is the BIG yahct race here) The start of the second cricket test wherever it may be played - more beer - the beach and leftovers. MMMMM
• Awful news Moneyjane - I was in Toronto earlier this year and wandering around feeling quite placid (although completely lost) until a random shooting occured about 1 hour after I had passed by on Yonge St - lucky for me - not lucky for the randomly injured. Until then I would never have believed it possible there the same as I don't even think of it as a concern here
• Nevermind your Feast of Steven, here's the Feast of Cohen. Not that I'd ever go. Sharing Cohen with others is one of the deepest circles of my personal Hell.
• Good King unspellable looked out on the feast of Stephen When the bushfires burned about Deep and unbeatable and uneven (sorry doesnt scan)
• Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in -- Leonard Cohen, from "Anthem"