Boxing Day in OZ

    It's absurdly early in the morning yet the shopping mall parking lot is jam packed.  Automobiles are illegally parked on sidewalks and under shade trees with so many more hovering and circling to find a spot of their own.  Frantic shoppers dodge the vehicles as they trot for the mall entrance.  Inside, even earlier arriving shoppers are already standing outside the entrance to the major department store. The line extends the entire length of the glass front and stands eight people deep at any point along the line. Necks crane, eyes strain and mouths gape. A faint buzzer sounds.  The doors open.  The masses stampede into the interior. Shoe sale at Nordstrom's?  The Day After Thanksgiving--also known as Black Friday?
     Nope.  It's Boxing Day, the day after Christmas.  It's a legal holiday here in OZ so most businesses are closed.  And what to do on a day off?  Go shopping.  There is no "official" start of the holiday shopping season here as Black Friday indicates to American consumers. But Boxing Day is extremely well-defined and well-fixed in the Australian mind as THE day to catch big bargains.  Didn't get what you want yesterday? It's on discount today. Hurry! White goods, clothing, perfumes, bedding, fry pans and Christmassy stuff for next year are all marked to move. The socks and underwear section seems rather empty (you didn't get enough "jox & sox" under the tree?) but the buying frenzy is on.  It's madness, I tell you, and not for the faint of heart. Thought you were safe shopping online from home? Nope. One of the major department stores websites crashed because of the heavy traffic on it.  Seems kind of backwards to go so ga-ga after the fact but this feverish exercise in post-holiday commerce could be an Olympic sport in this country.
    Speaking of sport, you have Boxing Day options in this category although both are spectator events for most slugs citizens.  The Sydney to Hobart Race starts on December 26 and will finish a few days later for the super yachts but a week later for sailors in much more humble dinghys.  The aerial shots of the beginning of the race are spectacular and TV coverage does stay live for awhile to show the big guns in action. There are many different classes being competed in so the little guys aren't completely out of contention for a prize. Not much for  water sports? How about Boxing Day cricket.  Cricket is on morning, noon and night--the long and short versions of this baseball-y game--for those who can't get enough of this sport. Watching it on TV where one is close to a fan and the fridge is far more comfortable than buying a ticket to see it in person.  But there are always the tragics who prefer to sit in the hot sun for seven hours for this slow-as-a-glacier action.  In fact, it's tradition for many folks to do just that.
    Now, the question still rolling through your mind:  how did Boxing Day get its name and what does it mean?  You'll get a lot of hemming and hawing when you start asking this question because most people just don't know.  It's British origins have gotten awfully muddled over time.  The explanation that seems to sit well with most people is that the day after Christmas was spent putting money into various poor boxes as a gesture of good will to the less fortunate and gratitude for your own financial blessings. Other translations are less magnanimous.
    So how much of the above did I do?  Not much.  I did drop into the grocery store which was near empty of staff, shoppers and food (last minute locusts cleared off the shelves two days earlier) and picked up the real bargain of the day.  Fresh turkeys were being sold at an 80% discount.  Roasted in in the cool of the evening and popped the meat into the freezer.  Our meal planning is set until 2014!