If you’re reading this in today’s paper, then you might know that it’s Boxing Day, which is a day in England where you carry out all the boxes from Christmas gifts and put them in your neighbors’ trash cans, because yours are full.

No, I’m lying. It’s actually the day that men love the most, because they get to lie around on the couch and watch boxing on television, along with other sports, while the women do all the cooking and cleaning. OK, I’m lying again. That is every holiday other than Boxing Day.

In England and many of its former colonies (except for us), Boxing Day falls on Dec. 26, not to belabor the obvious, but the day after Christmas. According to the Internet, which could never be wrong, it started out as a day when people donated to Christmas boxes for the needy, or, according to another version, people gave Christmas boxes to their servants as gifts.

Sadly, I don’t have any servants. However, that’s OK because nowadays they’ve done away with all that charity nonsense and have just gotten to the real thing: Shopping. This shopping fixation is such a big thing in England that Boxing Day is actually a bank holiday, (meaning that the banks are closed.) This might be a problem for some shoppers, but hopefully their credit cards have not taken the day off.

My best friend in high school, Sandy Smith, made this a special day even though we were never Brits. She and her mother would give each other money for Christmas instead of gifts, and then they would hit the sales on Dec. 26, buying everything at a discount. I was envious of this approach, though nowadays you find a lot of the sales going on before Christmas as well.

I’m writing this before Christmas, so I’m still in the throes of wrapping and counting gifts. Even though my children are now adults, they still carefully count the gifts I give them, to make sure they each get an equal number. Yes, this is stupid. But what can I do? Their prefrontal cortices are still under construction.

Apparently it did not occur to my son last year, when he was oh-so-rigorously counting his gifts under the tree versus his sister’s, that I had just spent a horrifying $450 on a snowboard ensemble for him, which was much more expensive than anything I bought his sister.

It was a weak moment last year when I agreed to drive down to the snowboard outlet in Costa Mesa and buy Cheetah Boy this equipment, since he couldn’t think of anything else he wanted for Christmas. What can I say? I’m a weak person.

I didn’t realize before we got there that the cheapest set of equipment we could find cost more than $400. Yikes! Eeek! But, hey,  we were already there so you know what happened. As I said, I’m weak, plus I think I went into some sort of brain-dead fit, surrounded by snowboard salesmen and junkies. Driving home on the freeway, I suddenly regained my sanity, and realized that I’d just purchased everything my son needed to suffer a traumatic brain injury, or, at the very least, break a limb which would throw him out of work as a massage therapist for months.

I told him that I was sorry, but I was going to turn the car around and take everything back. With a panicked voice, he convinced me not to do this. And, now, a year later, he has managed to avoid breaking any bones on the slopes, even though he’s generally a daredevil. He even spent his own money to buy a helmet and I know he’s worn it at least once, because he sent me a photo of him wearing it on the lift.

I don’t usually mind that my children love adventure sports, though both of them went skydiving this year and I was not in favor of that. I do find it somewhat comforting nowadays to know that they’re going to do whatever they want despite my advice, so the accountability is all theirs. When the kids went skydiving, I just requested that they inform me of the name of the company, so I knew where to retrieve the bodies.

But the snowboard thing popped into my head a few days ago, when I was standing in line at the hospital behind a guy with both of his arms in a cast. I didn’t hear what the clerk said to him, but he replied, “Snowboarding accident. I can’t wait to get these casts off so I can get back snowboarding again.”

Um, what?

This year, I’m giving the kids nothing that can cause injury, unless the heating pad I bought Curly Girl for her bad back explodes and catches fire. And I’m going to try not to get drunk. Last Christmas morning, I awoke early and made a fire in the fireplace, since it was a cold morning. Then I decided a cozy fire and Christmas carols on the radio deserved a Bloody Mary. So I made one. It tasted so good that I decided to have a second one, when the kids woke up and we started opening presents.

On an empty stomach, I suddenly realized that I was too hammered to make breakfast, as I had promised. So I called and ordered from Denny’s. Lickety split, a passel of breakfasts arrived at our door. This year, I’m going to put away the vodka.

Related linksFrumpy Middle-aged Mom: Tips for surviving your family during the holidaysFrumpy Middle-aged Mom: I’ll be the one washing the dishes at your holiday partyFrumpy Middle-aged Mom: I’m trying to decide if I should send Christmas cardsFrumpy Mom: Who wins the thermostat wars?A Christmas letter from the Frumpy Middle-aged Mom