Boxing day 2022

In my 20 years living in the U.K. I still refer to Boxing Day here in the U.K. as St Stephen’s Day (to the confusion of my English friends) as we Irish still refer to it - in many parts of Rural Ireland to this day, the tradition of the Wrenboys still goes on, where people dress up in costumes to collect money for charity and for us Catholics it’s still a holy day of obligation to attend Mass - usually at this time of year, I’d be making plans to travel home to visit family in Ireland post-Christmas, but with the current travel disruptions to both air travel and to SailRail via Holyhead with the current U.K. rail strike, I’ve had to defer these plans until at least March 2023 at the earliest - I’ve had a quiet Christmas, spending Christmas Eve off, watching webcam Masses from my home Parish in Ireland on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, speaking to family on Zoom and other video platforms, as our hotel gave us a week off with all the holiday days we could not carry over into the next holiday year, spread over the past few weeks of December 2022 on top of staff social events and raffles with bottles of wine and Budweiser (I won the most drink-related prizes lol) as we are an Irish owned hotel group so plenty of chances for staff tastings of new menus - I drink in very strict moderation as I was never a big drinker despite being Irish lol 

In my 20 years living in the U.K. I still refer to Boxing Day here in the U.K. as St Stephen’s Day (to the confusion of my English friends) as we Irish still refer to it - in many parts of Rural Ireland to this day, the tradition of the Wrenboys still goes on, where people dress up in costumes to collect money for charity and for us Catholics it’s still a holy day of obligation to attend Mass - usually at this time of year, I’d be making plans to travel home to visit family in Ireland post-Christmas, but with the current travel disruptions to both air travel and to SailRail via Holyhead with the current U.K. rail strike, I’ve had to defer these plans until at least March 2023 at the earliest - I’ve had a quiet Christmas, spending Christmas Eve off, watching webcam Masses from my home Parish in Ireland on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, speaking to family on Zoom and other video platforms, as our hotel gave us a week off with all the holiday days we could not carry over into the next holiday year, spread over the past few weeks of December 2022 on top of staff social events and raffles with bottles of wine and Budweiser (I won the most drink-related prizes lol) as we are an Irish owned hotel group so plenty of chances for staff tastings of new menus - I drink in very strict moderation as I was never a big drinker despite being Irish lol