After my success in re-creating a Christmas Day to match the ones from the past, my attempt to do the same with Boxing Day was a failure. When we got married in 1972, we let it be known that henceforth we were going to spend Christmas Day by ourselves as a "family" in our own right. My mother didn't take at all kindly to this but our minds were made up and we reached a compromise whereby my parents, my sister and her husband (they'd got married three months before us, in September) and us would take it in turns to host a Boxing Day get-together.
We kept the tradition going all through the 70s if I remember right, but my sister's marriage was soon heading for the rocks (it ended in divorce in the mid-80s) and it was that as much as anything which caused the arrangement to come to an end. Now, of course, I've no-one left to share a family Boxing Day meal with. I did wonder if any of the neighbours, who have all been extremely supportive and sympathetic, might invite me in for a drink or something, but I guess the spectre of Covid-19 and its associated restrictions made that an unlikely possibility and I'm not sure I'd have felt very comfortable about accepting, in fact. I also briefly considered the idea of eating out at a pub or somewhere but I wasn't sure whether it was worth bothering to find out if anywhere would be open, it was something I don't think we'd ever done and eating alone to conceal the fact that you've got no-one to eat with may appeal to some but I can't say it does to me. So without a leftover turkey to contend with, I had a roast lamb dinner instead.
For a number or years in the late 80s and early 90s, Carol and I used to go to the Boxing Day sale at Currys/PC World. We didn't always buy anything and when we did it was often something we didn't actually need, so I decided to save my money and give that a miss. I got a phone call from one of Carol's friends from Church who'd read the note I'd sent out with the cards. I didn't know her well, but did remember her. I was also conscious of the fact that Carol had found her a bit odd, and I'd never been entirely sure why she was on the Christmas card list, but she was.
In the evening, I watched a film. The one I chose (I came across it while I was looking for something else, in fact) was "Les Choristes" Billed as a musical drama, it's the story set in a French boys' boarding school of a new music teacher who tries to improve the children's lot by forming a chorus or choir. It was something of an odd choice for me, as I don't as a rule like musicals much: they were always very much Carol's choice of genre. It turned out somewhat to my surprise to be a bit of a "weepie" although I'm not sure whether it was really meant to be. Some aspects of it reminded me a bit of my schooldays, although in all fairness, mine were nowhere near as unhappy as theirs were portrayed as being. Nonetheless, the feeling of melancholy was something that got on top of me, resulting in that weird inconsolable feeling of loss which overwhelms you, when you're not even entirely sure what it is you've lost. It was just the cumulative effect of all sorts of pent-up emotions generated I daresay by the events of the last few weeks but it had me crying myself to sleep that night.
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