Boxing Day is known for many things. Well, a few things at least. Ok, really nobody knows much about what Boxing Day is, but if you Google it, you will find that the Boxing Day leftover sandwich is a thing.
Which is perfect, because I happened to have not finished the “sandwich” week of IPC, so we would perform that as a leftover today. . .
The Undercard:
Bear crawl 30 yards, triple-broad jump back, with 3 burpees after each 3 jumps. Accompanying music: a leftover earworm from Paradox’s Buttcracker last week. Since it was a ballet theme, I was sure Dox would throw in the (Yacht Rock?) classic “True” by Spandau Ballet. Since he didn’t, it has been playing on repeat in my brain for a week. The only way to cleanse: do some work while the entire song plays out. Sometimes you have to poison the host to kill the parasite.
Then we moseyed with our coupons ¼ around the CC for…
The Main Event:
Based on a prior template, the PAX would do an exercise while one man took a lap contemplating a question. Today, they would be mostly True or False Questions.
Correct answer results in reward, incorrect results in punishment. With each question, the PAX had one extra chance at redemption by identifying title and artist of the song playing.
First up: Tana. T or F: According to the Bible, 3 wise men visited Jesus’ nativity.
We did curls while “Fairytale of New York” played. Tana returned, unaware he had even been asked a question. Nonetheless, he responded “True.” The answer, in fact, is False, and we did 5 burpees. Goose was able to identify the Pogues (2nd guess), and although I didn’t hear him name the song, he did inform the PAX that the NYPD does not actually have a choir, which is an infinitely superior piece of information.
And for that, Goose got to go next. T or F: The modern image of Santa Claus (as we know him) was created by Coca-Cola. Now, YHC tried to pretend the question was randomly selected, but of course, it was designed for Goose since I’ve heard him state this as fact at least twice in the last week.
White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes played while Goose contemplated and ran, and the rest did Mike Tyson merkins (it’s Boxing Day, remember?)
Goose returned, and less-confidently than expected, answered “True.” In fact, again the answer is false, as there exist multiple examples of Santa as we know him prior to the Coca Cola ads of the 30s and 40s.
5 burpees.
Maneater was next, and his T or F question was: The use of an “Xmas” as a placeholder for “Christmas” began as part of the conspiracy to excise Christ from His holiday.
We continued the Boxing Day theme and listened to a cover of “Christmas Treat” by Julian Casablancas. (the original was written by Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sans for an SNL sketch).
I was sure to sort of mumble the original question to make sure Maneater answered “True” (which he did). Of course, again the answer was false, as the X (Greek Chi) has been used to nenote Christ since around 1500. 5 burpees
YHC had already selected the PAX question for this round: “Julian Casablancas is the lead singer of what band?” Honeysuckle, mid-song, perhaps using mind-reading technology, before I had a chance to even ask the question, asked “Is this the Strokes?”
The PAX was rewarded with 10 merkins.
And Honeysuckle got to be the next man up. Recognizing that HS likely was on to my pattern, I had to switch gears and not offer him a T or F question. Instead, it was Dad joke time: What did Goose say when Pope gave him a comb for Christmas?
Honeysuckle ran while the PAX alternated 7 Goosies with 7 Merkins and listened to “One Glove,” a duet by Jimmy Fallon and Will Ferrell. Although HS was unable to come up with the answer (Thanks, I’ll never part with it), Goose and Tana worked out both the title and artist of the song. I think we did 10 merkins as reward.
Next Wet Tap was given:
T or F: The lyric “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” originally was at the end (and not the beginning) of the song.
Worded like that, it seems like it should be true, right? We did 8-count bodybuilders while Tap ran around and convinced himself of just that fact, and returned with his (incorrect) answer of True (originally, that lyric was not in the song at all).
However, between Pope and Goose, “Christmas at Ground Zero” by Weird Al was correctly identified. The PAX did 5 8-count bodybuilders as a reward.
We found a dry spot to alternate between 7 squats and 7 Aussie Angels (might be made up) while Safety Valve ran and pondered the question written for Paradox:
T or F: The most popular Christmas candy bar in Louisiana is the Kit Kat.
He returned with a very reasonable answer: True. However, according to the Paradox taxonomy of candy bars, everything is a candy bar, so the most popular candy bar in LA is actually the candy cane. So again, the correct answer was false.
Goose identified that Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis were performing their version of the 12 Days of Christmas, but amazingly only knew their actual names, and not the characters Bob and Doug MacKenzie. Sometimes a man’s brain is too full of useful information and the useless stuff starts falling out. Sad.
Pope was the last man, and was confronted with the most difficult true or false question of the day:
True or False: Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
We were about to do mountain climbers while he ran, but suddenly YHC heard Montana say something, which I swear was “why can’t we do something in this nice wet grass instead?” Thinking fast, YHC quickly changed the event to WW3 situps.
Pope returned, answering True. My knee-jerk reaction was that this should be False (mainly because all the answers were false) but this subject has been famously debated, and I honestly wasn’t sure where I fell on this one… so YHC needed bit of time to think. Luckily, we had the other slice of bread for our Boxing Day Sandwich, and we were Set Adrift on Memory Bliss, as PM Dawn sampled Spandeau Ballet’s “True” and the PAX again bearcrawled 30 yards and Triple-Burpee-Broad-Jumped back. Twice.
This time we had to deal with the wet and slippery grass, and through the fog I could see men crashing down around me. In my mind I heard Frank Costanza’s voice shouting, “I sent 16 of my own men to the latrines that night!” I pushed the guilt aside, trying to fix my mind on the Die Hard dilemma.
We finished mostly unscathed (you okay, Valve?) and returned for COT. YHC reluctantly accepted Bluetube from Tana. Goose prayed us out.
Great job as always men.
SYITG,
AB
AB Cs the light (post credits-scene):
I created this beatdown as a “Not really Christmas” theme. After Goose’s OG-Christmas-Carol-Only BD, and the newfangled trendy music of Tchaikovsky last week, all of the songs this morning were intentionally Christmas-adjacent at best.
As far as the Die Hard dilemma goes… the arguments that it is a Christmas movie are many: The word “Christmas” is mentioned something like 18 times. More times than “die”, “hard”, “bomb”, “explode”, or “gun”. The setting is Christmastime during a company Christmas party.
Sounds Christmas-y.
But much like the beatdown today, it is superficial. Although I was wearing bad Santa pajamas, and there was a lot of talk about Christmas-y stuff, I only mentioned Jesus twice. Die Hard probably has zero references. I know, I know, you’re all saying, “But AB, what about the scripture ‘and the Lord spoketh “Yippee Kai-Ay.”’?’ I tell you then that is also false, and I compel you to admire the number of quotation marks used in the prior sentence. Pretty impressive, right?
So the movie synopsis: a celebration of corporate greed is interrupted by terrorists/thieves who get theirs at the hands of a NYPD detective.
Just like my beatdown, this has little to do with what Christmas actually is all about. And from that perspective, I find it hard to argue that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
I Know this Much is True.
