Boxing Day

I bet you think that the next holiday after Christmas is New Year's Day? Forget it. You turned tour head and missed one. December 26 is Boxing Day every year, an official holiday in Britain and now an unofficial shopping lure by retailers everywhere. It's another commercial kidnapping of a one time tradition, now excuse, for you to part with your money in shopping sprees. This strangely named holiday, has nothing to do with boxing gloves or any form of fisticuffs. But then, if you ever shopped at a mall at an after Christmas sale, you've probably seen a few fist fights over the reduced sock pile or 75% off microwave display.

Boxing Day's name comes from the tradition of "Christmas boxes," gifts of money or goods given to 17th century trades people and servants on the day after Christmas. It was the leftover and doggie box for the people who slaved for the wealthy. Boxing Day arose because servants, who would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, were allowed to visit their families the next day. Thus, their employers would give them boxes containing gifts, bonuses and, sometimes, leftover food to share with family. That's sort of like the Obama Presidential practice of handing out entitlements in exchange for votes from the welfare dependent.

But alas! In the tradition of our age with few real traditions, Boxing Day has turned into a major shopping event in several countries. In England,  the day attracts a record number of shoppers, some of them returning gifts but most attracted by "door buster" post holiday sales. Some of the more frugal Brits actually do their Christmas shopping on Boxing Day....last year's Christmas shopping that it. They simply give Christmas gifts a Day or two late and save big money by purchasing then. Boxing Day is the second biggest shopping day in Britain. Those who prefer tradition to shopping, or who hate shopping eschew Box Day as Shopping Day by instead going fox hunting and or drinking at the local pub on Boxing Day.

So the British tradition of Boxing Day is dying a bit there, and being conscripted by retailers who occasionally announce their day after Christmas sales as "Boxing Day Sales", tradition changing into crass shopping sales. Sigh...it's enough to make one want to fight.