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!

Bubble & Squeak on Boxing Day

All the Commonwealth celebrates Boxing Day and what a day it is. December 26, officially a public holiday, celebrates the post-Christmas sale season. People wake up early and wait for hours by the entrance to their favorite store so when the doors open they can race in for some serious bargain hunting. Unbridled commerce at its merriest. When I ask celebrators about the origins of Boxing Day, they scratch their heads and mumble something about donation boxes being opened and the collected monies being distributed to the poor. And it comes with a look that says, "What, am I Queen Victoria? Read Dickens or some other writer from Antiquity for the answer." Contemporary times require contemporary answers. It is for having an extra paid day off work. It is for hitting the sales and eating holiday meal leftovers.

Sounds like Thanksgiving and the Friday after it, doesn't it? But you are more likely to eat Bubble & Squeak on Boxing Day. A very catchy name for fried-up leftovers. Traditionally, that would be yesterday's potatoes, cabbage and meat. The dish takes its name from the murmurings and hissings the ingredients make while cooking in the frying pan. I've actually read recipes on how to make some variation of this from scratch. But get real, why deny previously prepared food its noble encore? Especially when your feet ache from chasing 60% OFF all day.

Alas, no Bubble & Squeak for us this year. We had a potluck picnic with my brother-in-laws family. Lots of cold salads and Kev grilled up some quail. You know its a gourmet type of poultry when each six ounce bird has about two ounces of meat on it. No leftovers here. The bro brought just enough ham for the brunch. No doubt there is some squeaking going on in his house. But that is quite alright. It's difficult to drive home when one is in a food coma. And there were more than enough Scottish butter cookies and fruit mince pies to fill any imaginary gaps.

A short word on the picnic site. Observe three Callaghans enjoying the shade of an ancient fig tree surrounded by mature palms. Hyde Park (established in 1897) must have been the place for society to stroll on a Sunday afternoon. Simply gorgeous with a pond in the center (seen behind the Grill Meister in picture above.) It is patrolled by ibis and ducks to make sure that no foodstuffs remain on the ground to attract undesirable wildlife. The royal Callaghans, wearing their paper crowns atop shadier chapeau, approve.