boxing day

Some folks consider the day after Christmas an important day of rest.
Whether they call it St. Stephen's Day or Boxing Day, whether they know anything about the day's history or just the traditions of their own family, what matters is Stopping the holiday-go-round to catch a breath. To nap, to read, to stare out a window. To be unambitious on purpose.
My mother considered it a day for good children to wait upon their parents, a reward for all that labor of making Christmas come together. So bringing up breakfast in bed was one way we did that, as were clearing out of the house or "keeping it down to a dull roar," to use my dad's phrase; or doing whatever errands or thankless tasks needed to be done, without complaint.
Now that both parents have been gone for more than 5 years -- she passed in 2002; he in 2004 -- my memories of the earliest holidays are the ones I cling to. Not so much the years when the house was so packed with adolescents that one hasty word or act could topple the delicate holiday house of cards; nor the years when we were all grown and they went off on vacations by themselves.
I like remembering the days when Christmas -- from the anticipation and preparations of Advent through the last glimmers of Epiphany on Jan. 6 -- kept all 8 of us warm and full and grateful for the particular miracle of one another.