Makes you kinda wish you were a Canadian, right, Bill? :-))

(ignant Canook question)

You do have Boxing Day in the US, don't you??

No, not unless Tyson puts gloves on.

Boxing Day derives from a British tradition. We broke away from them years ago.

Huh... I never realized that.
I feel bad that y'all don't have the glorious tradition of getting up at 6am the morning after Christmas, to stand in line for two hours just to buy a DVD player for $20, or get 15% off big screen TV's.

The day after Thanksgiving is our Mob Rule Mall Day, although the day after Christmas is beginning to rival that.

Many years ago we were celebrating New Year's Eve at a formal dinner at the Banff Springs Hotel. We were seated with a congennial British couple who, at the brief mention of Boxing Day, proceeded to deliver an elaborate treatise on its history and contemporary practice in the U.K. Unfortunately, I must confess to having drifted while smiling and nodding. Perhaps the blood flow to my brain was becoming restricted from the collar and bow tie. So I sadly remember relatively little of the presentation.

I hear ya. I usually take a nap during this kinds of presentations. I love Banff, by the way.

Nope, no Boxing Day here. The day after Christmas is when everybody gets up early in the morning, packs up the stuff relatives sent them, and rushes to Best Buy to stand in line for hours to exchange the items.

We do have some nice thoughts happening, however. Between Thanksgiving (that is the U.S. holiday that celebrates how the natives saved our forefathers' butts only to be trounced by them in later years) and Christmas, the food pantry places collect a lot of food for the homeless and needy, and most people seem to contribute food or money to that. The rest of the year, we let the rabble starve.

Pardon my cynicims--all it takes is one trip to the mall to make me want to spend Christmas in the Tortugas.

Ha! Here in Japan Christmas is pretty much a non-event let alone Boxing Day.

As I'll be shooting Christmas Day I'd like clear blue skies, not too cold, good coffee, and no serious hassles. I know the last is stretching it as I'm a foreigner in Japan but hey never hurts to ask.

I always equate Japan with good tea, not good coffee. I guess things are changing.

Yeah Bill the tea is very good, but when shooting I prefer good coffee. Recently there has been a coffee shop explosion here in Japan especially Tokyo. The last few years has seen Starbucks, Tulley's, Doutor, Excelsiour, and a few other chain shops open up on just about every corner. While these shops encapsulate the corporate greed that is rampant here you can't deny that with that many you should be able to find at least one good coffee.