Boxing Day December 26
Cats: Boxing Day, Heart of the Holidays, Tips & Trivia|The first weekday after Christmas, celebrated as a public holiday in parts of the British Commonwealth, when Christmas gifts are traditionally given to service workers, on December 26, the day after Christmas Day, or alternatively on the next weekday after Christmas.
In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden, the 26th is known as the Second day of Christmas: Stefanitag in Austria, der zweite Weihnachtsfeiertag in Germany; Δε?τερη μ?ρα των Χριστουγ?ννων in Greece; Annandag Jul in Sweden; Anden Juledag in Denmark; Andre Juledag in Norway; Tweede Kerstdag in Belgium and in the Netherlands; Annar dagur jóla in Iceland; Tapaninpäivä (St. Stephen’s Day) in Finland; Karácsony másnapja in Hungary. In some of these countries it is also a public holiday. This day is also known in Spain as San Esteban, and in Italy as Santo Stefano.
Origins
It was the day when people would give a present or Christmas box to those who had 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, 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.
Because the staff had to work on such an important day as Christmas by serving the master of the house and their family, they were given the following day off. As servants were kept away from their own families to work on a traditional religious holiday and were not 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. (Similarly, as the servants had the 26th off, the owners of the manor may have had to serve themselves pre-prepared, boxed food for that one day.) Hence the "boxing" of food became "Boxing Day."
