christmas traditions-the boxing day walk

i started to read this book last night, a rare work of fiction for me, chosen because it's loosely based around Catherine Bailey's Black Diamonds, the non fiction book documenting the history of the Fitzwilliam family who lived in a huge country house close to where i grew up in the UK. that reading, and the gloomy weather today put me in mind of my Boxing Day walks, almost always taken in the grounds of that big country estate.

coming from a northern hemisphere family obsessed by christmas, as you can imagine we had quite a lot of traditional practices, both cultural (letters to father christmas burnt in the fire; pomegranates, mandarins and nuts-still-in-their-shell in your stocking, turkey and sprouts for dinner) and idiosyncratically familial (one present was always ‘forgotten’ and suddenly discovered when the excitement had worn off in the late afternoon and the bickering commenced. genius mother, genius). but one christmas tradition we didn't partake in as a family was the Boxing Day walk. mum had polio as an infant so long walks were impossible, but as a teen it was a nice way to escape the family and the suffocatingly overheated house for a few hours. and it's stuck.

invariably you don’t want to do it when you wake. for starters, in the northern version anyway, it’s freezing and bad-weather-induced-dark. you’re likely hung-over and in an over-fed malaise. the sales are on! you have new stuff to play with and there’s loads of stuff to watch on telly. 

but once you get gone it’s ‘effing marvellous  the perfect excuse for the weather (grey, sheeting rain) “it might snow!” and the moody bare-branched beauty of the season. the parade of bright new scarf, hat & gloves combos, the dogs where dogs are not normally allowed. the festive I-really-mean-it “hello, Merry Christmas” greetings and talks of dreams for the New Year. my preferred routine was to walk in the morning and walk up an appetite towards a gastro pub, for it was far too bleak in midwinter to walk anywhere truly remote. following another roast dinner (lunch) and a pint, a slower, yet merrier meander home proceeded before collapsing in front of the late afternoon/evening telly. Boxing day perfection to my mind and my heart. from my place it was usually somewhere in the Hope Valley, in the Peak District. at home-home (mums) it was always to Wentworth House, village and the George and Dragon mainly because I could get there on foot right from the front door and because we English like a country house, pubs and a tailored landscape.

my summer-loving kiwi husband was finally persuaded to have a winter christmas a couple of years ago, and so we took Claud-the-christmas-baby to celebrate her first birthday and her second christmas (just) with her extended English family. joyfully our visit coincided with the 'big freeze' of 2010, so as well as being snowed on whilst Christmas shopping in Brighton and London, they got to experience the ultimate boxing day walk-the white(ish) boxing day walk. snow on the ground, frozen over dams, robin redbreasts, mist, moles and old buildings. whilst I wouldn't call the sun-loving a husband a convert he does now, finally  ‘get’ the allure of a northern christmas.

and what of the southern hemisphere boxing day walk? well, it’s not a tradition here for one thing, and if you superimpose christmas on high summer it has rather a different feel, which only lately has come to feel good (dare I suggest better?!). the walk part is not the problem, everyone walks in New Zealand and there are beautiful walking paths everywhere. the issue for me in maintaining my tradition is the walk-to-a-good-pub part. here pubs tend to be on the main roads, walks in the countryside, and rarely does the twain meet. For several years we simply walked down the river bed, fished a little, paddled a little. nice but not quite enough boxing-day-walk atmostphere for me (excepting the year it rained all day, that was a good one!). last year we walked from Ashworth's beach to Leithfield beach and the historic pub there. But it was noisy with wind, and the sand walking was rather hard on toddler legs, and the pub rather too populated with gambling machines for my liking. 
this year, given I’ll be 33 weeks pregnant (and as the Pegasus Bay winery restaurant is closed on Boxing Day-sob!) the plan is to take the lovely, only 6 kms round trip, historic walk from the Governors Bay Jetty to Allendale and back, followed by lunch at the Governors Bay Hotel. With a little fishing thrown in (the newer, southern hemisphere part of the evolving ritual of our Boxing Day walk) whatever the weather i'm anticipating happy remembrance of Boxing Day walks past for us, and the creation of early, sunny, Boxing Day walk memories for our wee Claud.

      Unapologetically sharing, very early in the season (I have so many more to share, heh heh) over at this linky...

                                    if you'd care to share your christmas traditions,  here's the place