The Boxing Day Bounce

My adrenal glands were fully depleted by about 8 o'clock on Christmas night and I repaired to my bedroom, with a glass of fizzy water and my iPad.

I couldn't see straight, thanks to a toddler dose of Benadryl, which I took an hour earlier after my eyes got so itchy, I wanted to gouge them out.

I was stricken with a nasty allergy to something -- maybe all the cat fur the kids brought in, maybe a sudden bad reaction to date squares. In any event, I was knackered.

Scott had prepared a lovely Christmas dinner just for us last night which included an over-large ball of poultry, potatoes, corn and stuffing. All the Christmas food groups. I could barely eat it. I was clearly down a quart of oil and I needed my bed and my canine bedmates.

Sophie snuggled under the covers as I skimmed the latest offerings on Netflix. I was absolutely done with Christmas and looking for something to soothe my pain body which was a concept that Oprah Winfrey planted in my psyche so many years ago.

Eckardt Tolle, you ruined my life.

Through my cross-eyes, I spotted Eat, Pray, Love and clicked on it, intent on letting Liz Gilbert's perky spirit wash over me. I've seen this movie fifty times and can't get enough of it. It's one of my favorites.

I might have picked Jon Katz' A Dog Year, which I like better because it's all dark and twisty, with furry, smelly redemption at the end.  But it's been banished from my house because Finnigan won't stop barking at the Evil Devon.

Perhaps Devon is Finnigan's Spirit Dog.

Really, Finn is mad about any dog movies -- literally mad. He's like a dog in heat. Whenever there is a dog on a commercial or movie, he tears into the room and goes insane. He might be in the backyard and as soon as he hears the breath of a dog or a scratch or a whimper, he literally knocks down the door to become one with them.

Nutty, nutty Labs.

Anyway, there are no dogs in Eat, Pray, Love because someone has already eaten them.

So EPL came on, and I promptly fell asleep, not deeply, but in trance-like state not unlike what Brody might have experienced on Homeland after being waterboarded by elves. That's how I feel about Christmas, tortured by silly commercials, Christmas specials and new songs by Michael Buble.

God, I long for Rita MacNeil and the Men of the Deep (a strictly Canadian reference, for my American friends to a Maritime legend and tea maven whose special ran for fifty-five years until she met her maker somewhere below in a Nova Scotian mineshaft).

But at least Rita was about spirit and love, along with her special guest host Patti LaBelle.

And where are all movies about the real meaning of Christmas? Have they been banished to the History Channel?

I long for news of the Baby Jesus and for just a small glimpse of the wise dudes who bring cool presents that make him smell nice.

Instead, all I could find was an Elf on a Shelf, which is a toy and shouldn't be a holiday movie!

I like Eat, Pray, Love because it's all about finding your jiggy spirit in the middle of a nervous breakdown. If I had money, I would get on the first plane to India, then Bali, but wait. The movie fails to warn of flash flooding, and snakes and spiders, to which I am allergic, both spiritually and physically. And I'm wary of swarthy Brazilians with mixed tapes. And Italians. Don't get me started on Italians. 

I like the notion of meditation.

Ha! The spell correct actually changed it to "medication," which is the other option the doctor is pushing and I'm against.

Meditation feels safe and comfortable, like a big bed full of pugs or a bagel and lox.

The trouble ( many would say, the advantage of) meditation is it always makes me fall asleep, which I did during the Indian part of Eat, Pray, Love. I didn't even get to the Brazilian, and Liz's subsequent urinary infection, or the cute old crazy medicine man who resembles a few of the crackheads on my street.

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Today, I woke up refreshed and got on to the business of resetting the house for our annual Boxing Day Super Special Barbeque, which is really just an occasion for Scott to stand out at the grill and toss around some pork. He's like the mailman. He'll barbeque in any weather: sleet, snow: sl-rain.

The nice thing about Boxing Day is the house is still clean from Christmas except for the recycle.

And there is plenty of recycle. Boxes, turkey carcass, and blond leftovers.

By the time the Boxing Day Super Special rolls around, I am so tired of turkey, I could eat a peck of pickled herring and drink one of those Joe Cross green drinks.

Hey, maybe we could have a "white" sale and invite the neighbors to eat all the bland food that has been clogging up my refrigerator and my arteries for the past five days. Nah, I'm simply too tired.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better. The "mood" is gone. My pain body has been repaired and I'm looking forward to another year, one in which I make more money than I did in high school.

Happy Boxing Day everybody. A special shout-out to my son Nick, who had to get up at the crack of dawn to tell grumpy Target shoppers that the free televisions were all gone.