Did you know that the day after Christmas isn't called Boxing Day in the USA? They don't even call it anything, it's just December 26th!
Well, I didn't know that until today, and the thought of my ignorance just seriously freaks me out. I mean, this is the fortieth Boxing Day I've spent on this planet, and while the first few of them were before the internet existed and America was just this sort of magical fictional place where they had all the cool Transformers toys that we didn't, Wikipedia's been around for quite a while now and I've been in regular contact with American friends since at least, ooh, must be 1998. How has this not come up in conversation?
What else am I taking for granted as a universal concept when actually it's just a silly local thing? I mean, it was freaky enough when I learned that they don't have Christmas crackers over there either, but Boxing Day?
Freaky, I tells you.
I knew they didn't have it in the US, but figured English-speaking peoples elsewhere knew what it was - apparently not in South America, however.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, we do have crackers in Canada, they;re just a much more optional part of a family's festivities over here (we rarely touch the things in my family)