Boxing Day – it’s all about giving!

Boxing Day isn’t just the day in which Santa puts his feet up and families around the world clear away leftover Christmas gift boxes before enjoying a more relaxed day.

THERE’S actually far more to the name given to December 26.

The name Boxing Day comes from a time when the rich used to box up gifts to give to the poor.

Boxing Day was traditionally a day off for servants, and the day when they received a special Christmas box from their masters.

The servants would also go home on Boxing Day to give Christmas boxes to their families.
The December 26 holiday was likely inspired by the charitable traditions of St Stephen’s Day—but no one is quite sure which one.

But it is widely agreed to have grown out of longstanding British traditions of charitable giving and goodwill—practices especially associated with the Christian festival of Saint Stephen’s Day, which is celebrated on December 26.

One of the first deacons of the Christian church, Saint Stephen was killed for his beliefs around AD36 and is considered Christianity’s first martyr.

Known for serving the poor, Saint Stephen is traditionally celebrated with charity and the distribution of alms.

If you’ve ever heard the carol “Good King Wenceslas,” you may recall that the king tramps through deep snow in a bid to give alms to a poor peasant.

The king was a real figure: Saint Wenceslas, a 10th-century Bohemian duke who, according to legend, did noble deeds “on the feast of Stephen”.

Since 1871, Boxing Day has been an official bank holiday in the UK, which moves the holiday to Monday if it falls on a weekend to give people more time off.

It is also celebrated in many former British colonies that remain part of the Commonwealth, such as Canada, Australia, Nigeria, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago.

Though the reasons are lost to history, Boxing Day charity eventually fell out of tradition—and was replaced with physical and material pleasures.

Today, the holiday is associated with sports, with major football, rugby, and cricket matches and horseraces taking place on December 26, along with hunting.

December 26 is also a big shopping day throughout the UK and the Commonwealth during which retailers attempt to move old stock and shoppers vie for bargains.

Some parts of the world have their own traditions for the day and in some parts of Ireland parades are still part of the celebrations to mark Wren Day or Lá an Dreolín.

There are many theories about the origin of Wren Day, including whether it evolved from Celtic mythology, Viking invaders or an early Christian festival.

But originally, the holiday was celebrated by ‘wren boys’ who killed a wren, considered to be good luck, and paraded the town with it on a pole asking for donations.

One thing is for sure, Boxing Day is for most of us a day in which we relax and enjoy leftover Christmas goodies.

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