Boxing Day

As predicted, it snowed on Christmas morning in Highlands, the first White Christmas since 2010.  Part of me wanted to be there to see it, because according to the photos on Facebook, it was one of those magical snows that clings to everything, transforming the natural world into something from a Christmas card.  The temperatures reportedly dropped into single digits and it did not look like anybody was out on Main Street.

We had a very nice Christmas and we hope that all of the readers of this blog had the same.  We looked out the balcony and, believe it or not, saw three ships sailing in – big freighters anchored off Beaufort Inlet. 

I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day in the morning.

By this morning only one remained out on the horizon.  Martha looked through the binoculars and swears that there was a huge snowman on the rear deck of one of them.  My vision is not as good as hers, but it did look like something tall and white, either cranes for unloading cargo, the rough surf making big whitecaps against the hull, or a crew with a sense of humor and the biggest inflatable decoration that I have ever seen.

Overnight it turned even colder, 12 degrees in Highlands, 29 degrees here with a wind chill of 18.  My Tai Chi on the dune-top deck was completed expeditiously. 

Today is Boxing Day, I learned from my news feed.  When we traveled to London 15 years ago, we arrived on Boxing Day and I remember that there were crowds of people everywhere.  Now it has become a holiday here, too.  I learned from a CNN report that it originated as a day of giving:

“Way back during the Victorian era in Britain, servants were allowed time off to visit their families on December 26, since they had to work for their employers' Christmas Day celebrations. It became such a standard practice that in 1871, a new holiday was born. Some say it stems from when the wealthy would give boxes filled with small gifts, money, and Christmas leftovers to their employees to recognize their service. Another theory is that churches put out boxes for people to give money to the poor, and the money was distributed the day after Christmas.”

A century and a half later, there is still poverty everywhere.  But as with most things about this holiday, Boxing Day has been commercialized so that it is now a shopping day comparable to Black Friday.  We celebrated Boxing Day by not going anywhere this morning and definitely not doing any shopping.  After a lunch of turkey sandwiches, I found a couple of lovely performances of The Nutcracker on PBS and watched them, one by the UNC School of the Arts and one by the Scranton Civic Ballet Company.  They were described as “for our time,” but still it was a little jarring to see all of the dancers wearing face masks.

After a brisk walk around the block and out onto the beach, I returned to watch a performance of Handel's Messiah by the Handel and Hayden Society in Boston - a Messiah "for out time."  And yes, they, too, were wearing masks. 

Martha talked to two of her aunts yesterday and discovered that Anne will be having her first Covid vaccine next week, and Lizette will be having hers in the near future, too.  As for the rest of us, we will just wait patiently as those who need it the most are protected first.  But it is hopeful as we end this year and begin another one.  Can we actually begin to look forward to a time when we can once again dine in restaurants with friends, visit relatives who have been in quarantine since March, travel and not be afraid to stay in a hotel room?  Will we be able to dance?  And make music?  Without wearing masks?

Every valley shall be exalted,
and every mountain and hill made low;
the crooked straight and the rough places plain.