DEC 20 WHAT IS BOXING DAY?

DEC 20  WHAT IS BOXING DAY?

Across America, people look at their December calendars, anxiously counting down the days to Christmas. Afterward, we look at the day after the holiday and we see in the box...next to the number 26...the odd entry: BOXING DAY (UK, CAN, AUS). Americans scratch their heads and wonder what this holiday means. We asked our British friends about it...and guess what? Most people in the UK don't know what Boxing Day means either. This sounds like the perfect topic for a blog.

Before we start, let's clarify what Boxing Day is not. It has absolutely nothing to do with the sport of boxing. (You don't love people on the 25th, but then sock them in the face on the 26th.) Most people think the term derives from 'boxing' up used wrapping paper, unwanted gifts and discarded fruitcakes for the rubbish heap...but that's not the case. Nor does it have anything to do with horse racing, Premier League Soccer, cricket or jumping into frozen lakes.

Nope, according The Guardian the origins of Boxing Day "lie not in sport, but in small acts of kindness." During the Middle Ages, parishioners collected money, gifts and food for the poor in alms boxes during the Christmas Mass. These were then opened by the poor the next day. During the Victorian era, the process was expanded. Although the domestic staff of large manors had to work on Christmas Day, they were given the next day off for their own families. Before leaving, servants, maids and cooks were given extra wages, gifts and food in fancy boxes.

During the Victorian Era, there were thousands of manors with tens of thousands of people working in them. Not surprisingly, the day evolved into an important event for a large percentage of the British population. Boxing Day became an official bank holiday in 1871. Since then, the holiday has been celebrated in a variety of ways. Since the help was gone, aristocrats went hunting or to the race track. This expanded into the soccer and rugby leagues. Today, Boxing Day matches are now a fixture on the sports calendar.

These days, Boxing Day has an entirely new purpose. Gone are the traditional trips to church to give boxes to the poor. Nope! Today, Boxing Day is the busiest shopping day of the year in the UK and Canada, with billions of pounds in retail sales. In fact, it is just like Black Friday in the US. Stores ceremoniously open their doors at 5am, welcoming in a mad rush of consumers clamoring for bargains. Sigh. Let's just hope people take their purchases from Oxford Street home, put them in a fancy box and give them to the homeless.