Boxing Day- the day after that day.

Boxing Day- the day after that day.

Boxing Day is normally the day of recovery, repercussions, re-appraisal, for looking back on that previous day when huge family networks slump on their respective sofas in collective states of exhaustion and sozzled intoxication. There may be an underlying sense that it may have been worth it all if only our friendly cousin hadn't been quite so obsessed with the Fosters lager or that third bottle of Jack Daniels.

So what to do when the Christmas Day family films have run their course, when all you can do is indulge in that yearly session of heavy snoring, wearing silly paper hats still tilting over to one side of the head at some weird mathematical angle and tinsel delightfully sprinkled over the comfortable slippers that your auntie brought last Christmas. All around the family there is a giggly mayhem and carnage that none of them can quite explain.

Grandfathers are still smoking their tenth Havana cigar, uncles proudly displaying that almost cliched Christmas pullover with the familiar snowman. In a small corner of the sofa the TV remote channel is beginning to look very sorry for itself, subjected as it has been to that yearly ritual of being thrown heartlessly across the living room. This is quite definitely cruel and merciless, the kind of punishment most of us would never think of repeating throughout the year. And yet how we love it.

The fact remains though that Boxing Day leaves us all anti climactic, wondering what on earth possessed us to spend all of that hard earned money on some crazy food and drink spending spree. The family have generally had a terrific time, eating and drinking extravagantly, playing board games they haven't seen for at least a year and then ripping open more wrapping paper because it seems the best thing you can ever do on the day after Christmas Day.

But generally most of us are in an advanced state of grogginess, sluggishness, heavy with the scent of rich booze on our lips. We know we've had the most unforgettable day of the year but if only we'd remembered why we'd drunk like fish and eaten as if it were going out of fashion then perhaps we could rationalise with everything we've done to our digestive system.

Now though is the time for sober reflection and focusing on that long, gruelling walk through the park, sauntering over sturdy bridges, strolling happily by ponds and lakes of utter serenity, hills that challenge not only the muscles and joints but our infinite capacity to climb steep hills, stamina sapping treks through muddy, slippery forests. We then turn to our loyal and trustworthy dogs who always love a thrillingly invigorating run in the park, barking and yapping, relieved and just overjoyed to be out in the fresh air and chasing branches.

And then we consider the Boxing Day pantomime but only briefly when we suddenly recognise that our children are no longer children and pantomimes are designed for today's generation of  children. It always felt good to be a parent when our children just laughed themselves shamelessly over the exploits of Jack and the Beanstalk and the nasty baddies deserved nothing more than hatred and revulsion. But they've now grown up and are consenting adults who are rightly allowed to vote and drink. Still, it  may be possible to re-capture our childhoods who ever we are because that's our prerogative whether we be a man or woman.

For some of us this is still the day when our football team, now 55 years ago, were battered, crushed and left out in the cold to lick our painful wounds. West Ham, bless their cotton socks, were roundly thumped on this day in 1963. On a day when the goals rained down on the old First Division in almost biblical fashion, West Ham entertained Blackburn on a thick, muddy Upton Park gluepot. It still seems like some terrible calamity that never happened but it did. Blackburn came away from East London with an 8-2 victory that was only redressed two days later with a 3-1 win for the Hammers at Ewood Park.

And so Boxing Day now draws to another close and the nation begins to fixate on those perennial winter department shop sales where we all jostle and push each other out of the way in the relentless pursuit of the cheapest bargain. It all seems so hilariously predictable because we're all somehow conditioned to behave this way at this time of the year. Some of us are now off to demolish the remnants of yesterday's feast and launch another search party for the TV remote channel. Keep celebrating everybody!