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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat is Boxing Day, anyway?
For anyone who has always wondered, I can't vouch for this but it sounds plausible:
Boxing Day takes place on December 26th and is only celebrated in a few countries. It was started in the UK about 800 years ago, during the Middle Ages. It was the day when the alms box, collection boxes for the poor often kept in churches, were traditionally opened so that the contents could be distributed to poor people. Some churches still open these boxes on Boxing Day.
It might have been the Romans that first brought this type of collecting box to the UK, but they used them to collect money for the betting games which they played during their winter celebrations!
In Holland, some collection boxes were made out of a rough pottery called 'earthenware' and were shaped like pigs. Perhaps this is where we get the term 'Piggy Bank'!
The Christmas Carol, Good King Wenceslas, is set on Boxing Day and is about a King in the Middle Ages who brings food to a poor family.
It was also traditional that servants got the day off to celebrate Christmas with their families on Boxing Day. Before World War II, it was common for working people (such as milkmen and butchers) to travel round their delivery places and collect their Christmas box or tip. This tradition has now mostly stopped and any Christmas tips, given to people such as postal workers and newspaper delivery children, are not normally given or collected on Boxing Day.
Boxing Day has now become another public holiday in countries such as the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
from: http://www.whychristmas.com/customs/boxingday.shtml
So happing Boxing Day to all!
Cha
(297,799 posts)ucrdem
(15,512 posts)and this one has a better story behind it than I'd hoped!
Cha
(297,799 posts)Violet_Crumble
(35,980 posts)That wrong on so many levels! I'm adding that to my list of reasons I'd never live in the US, right alongside lack of universal healthcare and way too many guns.
Someone should start a petition to get the Boxing Day holiday.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/
That way you could all do what most people do on Boxing Day, which is:
Watch the Boxing Day Test
Watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race
Get dragged along by shopaholic siblings to stupid Boxing Day sales - have since put my foot down and refuse to go anymore
My favourite Boxing Day activity is sleeping off the excesses of the day before
Cha
(297,799 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)many of the lesser holidays have been moved to a Monday, so that a 3 day weekend can enjoyed.
There are some holidays that happen in some states but not in others.
For instance, here in Ala. we have Confederate Memorial Day and Jefferson Davis' birthday as holidays.
dilby
(2,273 posts)And our UK employees get Boxing day off, this year boxing day is looking like the better deal because of the 4 day weekend.
TexasProgresive
(12,159 posts)Nobody really knows the origin or the meaning of Boxing Day. None of the completing theories seem completely right.
Response to ucrdem (Original post)
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rogerashton
(3,920 posts)it was the day you tried to find the original boxes for the stuff you want to return.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)Kablooie
(18,641 posts)the day when people rush into Walmart and box each other over the bargains.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)Sen. Walter Sobchak
(8,692 posts)My parents came up to spend it with me, on Christmas evening my mother realized she had forgotten the cable for her camera at home so I ventured out to Best Buy at Northland Mall in Calgary the next morning, where I walked through the door to the sight of two girls clawing each other's eyes out for a $79 Moto RAZR and the line for the check-out snaking around the store several times.
jmowreader
(50,567 posts)It supposedly refers to people boxing up goods to donate to the poor. You know: you get new clothes on Christmas, you clean out your closet on Boxing Day.
So...when is "beat the shit out of your Republican relatives" day?
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Quantess
(27,630 posts)Also the calendar put Canada in parentheses, so I imagined it was a day of Canadians stepping into the boxing ring the day after christmas.