Boxing Day Rollercoaster Amazing (Blog 557)

I’m typing on Boxing Day morning and at the moment there is less positive to say than negative. I’m kinda bored. I went shopping to get food and brown wrapping paper (the only kind they had) so I could wrap presents for my sister in law and youngest niece after running out of the stuff on Christmas eve. That went well at very least, especially as I got my dad to pay for everything. It is the season for giving but who to, that’s the question? Well, my dad was giving to me. To be fair though, I also gave to him. I gave the advice of getting more wrapping paper. That’s actually pretty good for me though, as I told my brother to get me chocolates as a Christmas present which is a type of advice and arguably bad advice. Something is amiss when most of your diet is such foods, and something is amiss both today and yesterday. Anyway, why is brown paper significant? My nephew said it was his favourite colour! A little bit of an unusual choice and that has to be respected. However, I wrapped his present two days ago with different paper, so I’ll just have to cross my fingers my niece loves the colour just as much. If I had to guess her favourite colour? Pink! Apologies for stereotyping just then, but did you know that in the past blue was a girly colour and pink was for boys? In that case, I guess I wasn’t truly stereotyping. Not that it really matters, as I used purple wrapping paper for my older nieces. Now that I think of it, purple is like a cross between pink and blue isn’t it? So either I did the right thing by pleasing everybody OR I did the exact opposite and pleased no one.

Here’s an interesting thought: My youngest niece’s present came in a box, I was therefore working with boxes and literally boxing on Boxing Day. However, it would be crazy to suggest that’s precisely where the holiday got its name from. There’s a super trippy novel or film for you, a tale where time makes no sense at all. Time is a confusing concept already as I mean… why IS there time in the first place? I don’t know and now things are worse. A holiday that dates back centuries, yet is based on a date in 2025 and is dedicated solely to a random blogger? I like how I’d be the star of it though, unless the tale has a dark twist to it maybe. Maybe people would be mad at me for confusing everyone and making everything about me. Making things worse, as explained a few days ago, I couldn’t get my youngest niece or nephew exactly what they wanted but I got gifts that are very near. What if they have them already? As in ‘surprise! … oh no…’ I’ll have to go through that twice. Three times if you consider the wine mistake I made by not getting Prosecco like I was told to, but come on all wine tastes the same right? I still have the receipts at least. Remember when I said I got a dinosaur themed book present for my youngest niece? No offence to the author but it doesn’t really compare to the other presents I bought, so I thought it would be unfair giving her that whilst everyone got real toys, so I decided to give the book to all the children. Sorted!

Right, the family have just visited me! First up everyone talked about various and random things. This sounds bad, but I was too preoccupied with the Ferrero Rochers to know exactly what everyone discussed for the most part, but as behavioural scientists will know, sugar is very addictive and in extreme cases (like this one) it can ruin family interactions. Fortunately as the children aren’t mine, the damage should only be mild to moderate. It’s possible they may grow up thinking of themselves as less important than chocolate, but it’s nothing a good therapist can’t sort out. Maybe everyone’s self esteem can be boosted simply by having their strengths pointed out. It was later found my nephew is good with Lego! Then came the meal which for me mostly consisted of Bakewell tarts and mince pies, also explaining how I missed some of the conversations. Not all of them though, my dad boasted about how old his corkscrew was and my brother talked about how he remembered using a manual orange juicer as a child. Yes, I vaguely remember using it too, I like it when that happens. Then came the opening of the presents. All three of the questionable ones I was unsure about went down very well, as did the dino book! Phew! My sister in law then asked my dad about his family and he dropped a bombshell where my father’s family is actually Danish, and how his father’s surname was originally Wiedeman. Why was it changed? No one knows! You know what that means? It means I don’t have German efficiency in me after all. Instead I have pastries, which does make sense as I do eat a lot of them. Then I walked the dog with my dad. Oh wow, I’ve just Googled ‘Wiedeman name origin’ and A.I. says that’s a German name, too. You can understand how confusing those last few minutes were for me. Now I’ve got to add my gifted CDs to my collection, bye!