Boxing Day
Today is Boxing Day, a public holiday celebrated in the U.K. and most Commonwealth countries, including Canada. For tens of thousands of Canadians, Boxing Day will be a shopping frenzy, trying to snap up the post-Christmas bargains on those items they feel they should have received yesterday.
I prefer to spend Boxing Day as a quiet cap to Christmas Day. Yesterday was a wonderful celebration with family and friends. Today we’ll finish cleaning yesterday’s remnants. We’ll linger over meals, take a longer look at the gifts we received, read, listen to music, walk the dog, greet neighbours and meet friends for coffee.
There are disparate theories as to the origins of the term [Boxing Day]. The more common stories include:
- It was the day when people would give a present or Christmas ‘box’ to those who have worked for them throughout the year. This is still done in Britain for postmen and paper-boys - though now the ‘box’ is usually given before Christmas, not after.
- 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 26 December, 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 England 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. 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 lockbox in which the donations were left.
- Boxing Day was the day when the wren, the king of birds,[3] 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. See 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.
- Because the staff had to work on such an important day as Christmas Day by serving the master of the house and their family, they were given the following day off. Since being kept away from their own families to work on a traditional religious holiday and not being able to celebrate Christmas Dinner, the customary benefit was to “box” up the leftover food from Christmas Day and send it away with the servants and their families. Hence the “boxing” of food became “Boxing Day”.
Boxing Day - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Update: I said tens of thousands of Canadians will be shopping today. According to CBC news, the an expected six million Canadians will be shopping on Boxing Day.
[tags]Boxing Day, holidays, Christmas, Canada, England[/tags]
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