Boxing Day
Boxing Day is a public holiday observed in many
Commonwealth countries on December 26. In many European countries it is also a holiday, called
St. Stephen's Day or the
Second Day of Christmas. Depending on its origin, it may have traditionally been strictly defined as the first weekday after Christmas
[Merriam Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica describing Boxing day as "the first weekday after Christmas", where weekday may or may not include Saturday.]. However, in recent years Boxing Day has been almost universally accepted as
26 December [The British Broadcasting Corporation refers to Sunday, 26 December as "Boxing Day"], although its associated public holiday may fall on a different day.
Boxing Day is often celebrated by giving gifts and donations to the poor and needy.
In some Commonwealth countries, fixed-date holidays falling on Saturday or Sunday are often observed on the next weekday, so if Boxing Day falls on a Saturday then Monday 28 December is a public holiday; while, if Christmas Day is a Saturday then both Monday 27 December and Tuesday 28 December will be public holidays. In the http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/bankhol.htm government holiday listing of the United Kingdom for 2004, the bank holiday in lieu of Boxing Day was observed on Monday
27 December,
before the holiday in lieu of Christmas Day on Tuesday
28 December.
There is great dispute over the true origins of Boxing Day. The more common stories include:
*Centuries ago, merchants would present their servants food and fruits as a form of Yuletide tip. Naturally, the gifts of food and fruit were packed in boxes, hence the term "Boxing Day".
*In feudal times, Christmas was a reason for a gathering of extended families. All the serfs would gather their families in the manor of their lord, which made it easier for the lord of the estate to hand out annual stipends to the serfs. After all the Christmas parties on December 26, the lord of the estate would give practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land. Each family would get a box full of such goods the day after Christmas. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obliged to supply these goods. Because of the boxes being given out, the day was called Boxing Day.
*In Britain many years ago, it was common practice for the servants to carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day's work on the day after Christmas (December 25). Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts. This can be compared with the modern day concept of Christmas bonuses. The servants carried boxes for the coins, hence the name Boxing Day.
*In churches, it was traditional to open the church's donation box on Christmas day, and the money in the donation box was to be distributed to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day. In this case, the "box" in "Boxing Day" comes from that one gigantic lockbox in which the donations were left.
*In Britain because many servants had to work for their employers on Christmas day they would instead open their presents (i.e., boxes) the next day, which therefore became known as Boxing Day.
*None of the above stories make any logical sense - Gifts would be given when they were most needed, before not after christmas and in the case of the church why would one have any other name for christmas day but christmas day? The last explanation pre-supposes there was a plentiful supply of cheap boxes, presumably made of paper or cardboard - well wikipedia tells us that the first commercially available cardboard box didn't appear in Britain til 1815. -I think Boxing day existed well before that date.
*Boxing Day was the day when the wren, the king of birds was captured and put in a box and introduced to each household in the village when he would be asked for a successful year and a good harvest.
Italic textSee Frazer's Golden Bough.
*Evidence can also be found in Wassail songs such as:Where are you going ? said Milder to Malder,Oh where are you going ? said Fessel to Foe,I'm going to hunt the cutty wren said Milder to Malder,I'm going to hunt the cutty wren said John the Rednose.And what will you do wi' it ? said Milder to Malder,And what will you do wi' it ? said Fessel to Foe,I'll put it in a box said Milder to Malder,I'll put it in a box said John the Rednose.etc.........
Boxing Day in the UK is traditionally a day for sporting activity, originally
fox hunting, but in modern times
football and horseracing.
In
Canada, and indeed any other country that celebrates it, Boxing Day (in French,
lendemain de Noël, "day after Christmas") is also observed as a public holiday, and is a day when stores sell their excess Christmas inventory at significantly reduced prices. Boxing Day has become so important for retailers that they often extend it into a "Boxing Week". This occurs similarly in Australia and New Zealand.
In Australia, a
test match starting on December 26 is called the
Boxing Day Test Match, and is played at the
Melbourne Cricket Ground before the largest crowd of the summer.
In
Austria,
Denmark,
Germany,
Hungary,
the Netherlands,
Norway,
Poland and
Sweden, the 26th is known as the
Second day of Christmas (
"der zweite Weihnachtsfeiertag" in Germany,
Annandag Jul — "the day after Christmas" — in Sweden) and is also a public holiday. In Ireland, the holiday is known as
St Stephen's Day, or
Wren's Day; in Austria it is called
Stefanitag,in
Italy Santo Stefano, and in Finland
tapaninpäivä which also mean "St. Stephen's Day"; in Wales, it is known as
Gŵyl San Steffan (St. Stephen's Holiday). In
Catalonia, this day is known as
Sant Esteve,
Catalan for St. Stephen. A practice known as Hunt the
Wren is still practiced by some in the
Isle of Man, where people thrash out wrens from
hedgerows. Traditionally they were killed and their feathers presented to households for good luck. In Germany the days between Christmas and new year are called "the days between the years" (zwischen den Jahren) and becoming more and more important for retailers to clear the unsold christmas goods.
In both the United States (where the term "Boxing Day" is not used and is in fact unfamiliar to most) and Canada (where, as previously mentioned Boxing Day is observed as a holiday), Boxing Day and the days immediately following are when many retail stores sell-off their Christmas and retired model products by holding
clearance sales. Some retail companies internally refer to the sales week after Christmas as the "thirteenth month." (See
Boxing Week.)
*
Boxing Day Test (
Test Match cricket)
*
Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race*
English and
Scottish Football matches
*
Junkanoo is celebrated in
The Commonwealth of The Bahamas*
Snopes: The Origins of Boxing Day*
Boxing Day: A Bafflingly Mysterious Enigma Puzzle - Humorous fictional speculation on Boxing Day's origins.
