The Second Day of Christmas

It is the day after Christmas. Sometimes this day seems like a let-down.  There is  nothing left to anticipate, nothing left to prepare, nothing to do, really, except clean up the mess.  However, in this house, and in many others, it is the first day of actual vacation from work, so how should we use the time?

It seems to me that in our modern Western culture, we've forgotten how to celebrate a proper holiday.  In several other cultures, at least one holiday or celebration spans many days.  Christmas, in fact, used to go for twelve days--we even have a song to that effect. But now we just have the "shopping holiday" that runs from Thanksgiving to Christmas (and only that long, if we're lucky).  Christmas has become another manifestation of the busy American culture--spending a lot of money and frantically doing a lot of things, then having one big let down after it's all over.  

So I say we should go back to celebrating all twelve days of Christmas.  In my household, we've decided that one of our Christmas day traditions will be to go sledding (or hiking, it poor snow years).  We did not have a white Christmas at our house yesterday for the first time in years, being stuck in a high pressure system that doesn't seem to end.  But we were able to find snow on Moscow Mountain and a really gnarly sledding run.  It was great!  We also found this pair on the mountain, still dozing when we found them on the quiet Christmas morn.

   
Now to come up with a tradition for today!