I originally started work on this puzzle in early 2014. Version One had a 4-5-4 configuration across the top and bottom with the larger shaded squares one row closer to the center of the grid. That grid was rejected by Will due to a lot of questionable fill, and an 80-word count. It then languished in my "reject file" for almost 8 months.

With a fresh set of eyes I took up the puzzle again and switched to what is ostensibly a 3-7-3 configuration, shifting the central shaded squares to their current location. I tried several different "Days" in the shaded squares until settling on what you see today.

After a few back-and-forths with Will and Joel, Will accepted it in May of 2015, however Boxing Day, 2015 fell on a Saturday, so it was held until today. Hope you enjoyed it. Happy Boxing Day!

I wish we got cool holidays like BOXING DAY in the US. But maybe that's just my ongoing post-Harry Potter Anglophilia speaking because BOXING DAY turns out to be just the day after Christmas when "Christmas-boxes" are given to service personnel. Grumble grumble. I was hoping to see Hagrid enter the ring against a boggart.

Jules literally boxes up days: LEAP day, ELECTION day, SNOW day, GAME day, PATRIOTS day, HUMP day. I liked how consistent he was, always starting in the lower left corner and then continuing clockwise. It's little touches like that can help make a puzzle sing.

It's always tough to fill around big chunks of letters fixed into place, so Jules did pretty well in the upper left. Note that he deployed a lot of his black squares in the middle — separating BOXING DAY from the six literal boxes makes for easier filling overall — which means he was forced to work with relatively long answers in the corners (to keep to the maximum allowable 78 words in total). Love EDAMAME, BELARUS, BAPTIST around that LEAP day. MUSERS is a made-up-sounding, pluralized -ER entry, but ESTA is the only other gluey bit. Pretty good there.

The bigger boxes are naturally tougher to fill around, having eight instead of four letters to work with, so it's not a surprise to get an old TELEX and a rough -ATION up top. SILOING sounded a bit odd at first, but it does seem to have real usage.

The bottom also shows some strain in a partial-ish THE NOW and the esoteric French ETAPE. But I did like GET RICH and POP STAR.

Overall, I liked the homage to BOXING DAY, but it would have been nice to get a little more tightness than simply "any word that can precede DAY." Maybe all holidays, or all slang terms for days of the week, or all Wizard-based holidays, etc.

There really should be Wizard-based holidays. Grumble grumble.

P.S. As Jules pointed out to me, there really ought to be a NIB 'O EGGO day (check out the center of the puzzle).