The day after Christmas is officially known as Boxing Day for reasons that make no sense that I have found.

Some say Boxing Day stems from getting rid of the boxes Christmas came in, fisticuffs between family members or even a bit of merry olde English charity.

Doesn't matter because Christmas isn't really over on the day after. The Big Day is so powerful that its influence extends well into the next 48 hours. Try going shopping on Dec. 26 if you don't think so.

On Monday I woke up, stumbled through wrapping paper and dirty dishes to the kitchen, whimpering from a vicious Hungry, Hungry Hippo-grandkid induced hangover.

Breakfast was leftover pumpkin pie, garlic cheese ball and four aspirin. I stepped on a fondue fork while trying to let Bob Valdez in. He changed his small cat mind when he saw the furious Ghost of Christmas Past with a fondue fork in its hand and a curse on its lips.

I went back to bed and slept until the evening news.

The day after the day after Christmas was much better. Going outside was like emerging from a fallout shelter. I peered around at the dreary, post-apocalyptic world, trying to decide whether survival was a good thing or a bad thing.

As with any calamity, the meaning of survival depends on what you learned from it. For example, I learned that I'm going to get all my Christmas shopping for 2006 done by Easter. No more standing in lines and being threatened by little old ladies. Furthermore, 2006 will be a cash-only Christmas. Not a debit card. Cash. Preferably pennies. In this small way I hope to avoid having Circuit City charge my account THREE %#@* TIMES FOR THE SAME %#@* DIGITAL CAMERA!

Sorry. I'm also going to learn to hang onto my temper better next Christmas.

A neighbor saw us outside and came over to say thanks for the plastic plate we left on their porch. The plate originally contained cookies, but apparently a dog got there before they did. All that was left was the to-from tag.

Speaking of lessons learned, if the thought really is all that matters, maybe that's all we should put on the plate next year. We'll just skip the part where we bake the cookies and blame it on a dog.

Thanks to grandkids, we're back in the Christmas toy market. We have to learn to buy quieter ones. I got a charley horse in my face from 10 hours of listening to Gage push a fire engine up and down the hall.

No more teasing grandkids about what's in their gifts. I told Hallie that the large box with her name on it under our tree had a pig inside it. I'll spend the next 20 years hearing how it was really a Dora the Explorer Doll House.

Mostly I have to learn that the really good Christmases are the simple ones. After more than 50 of them, you'd think I would have learned that by now.

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Contact Robert Kirby at rkirby@sltrib.com or 801-257-8719. Send comments on this column to livingeditor@sltrib.com.