Boxing Day blues

Christmas 2016 is now officially Past, to use the terminology made famous by one of the ghosts in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.   Now we can celebrate Boxing Day.  To the cognoscenti, this English holiday falling on the day after Christmas was originally dedicated to collecting donations of food for the poor which was "boxed" and then delivered to the less fortunate.  It has now become a hybrid of Christmas and Black Friday, at least at our Canadian neighbors'.   Unlike the US celebration of Black Friday as the kickoff to the Christmas season, the Canadian Boxing Day is the close of their season and usually offers better discounts.  Faced with year end inventories, many retailers turn them into cash by offering absurd bargains.   At least that is the theory.  Either way, it is the same as the greed and commercialism which plagues most developed countries.  As we slide toward a 2017 which will begin with the elevation of a reality TV star to the Presidency of the US, it is worth saying a silent prayer to whatever deity you favor to please keep us all sane in the face of the ludicrous situation into which a minority of voters have put the nation.  Boxing day is just another reminder of how a worthwhile institution has been changed out of recognition, much as the democratic process has been perverted.