I guess I had forgotten from my prior experience of living in the USA that Americans, if indeed they have even heard of this unique British holiday, don’t really understand its origins. It is probably also true that many of my fellow countrymen, and those from Australia, New Zealand and Canada where the holiday is also celebrated, fall into the same uninformed category.
    There are many misconceptions as to the reason for the holiday being so named. Perhaps the most prevalent is that it is a legally designated day when tanked-up family members resort to pugilism to settle scores which have been festering during the previous twelve months.  Much as I like the images conjured up by this notion it is not true.
    Another misconception is that Boxing Day is the day to get stuck into an early spring clean and collect up the mountains of cardboard boxes which are cluttering a normally tidy house. It really is remarkable how much packaging material is used for Christmas presents. I sometimes wonder if the packaging industry is not the biggest benefactor of the excess of generosity that occurs at Christmas time.
    The name also has nothing to do with taking boxes containing unwanted gifts back to the stores from whence they came. It is with this thought in mind that I confess to some sympathy for shop assistants who must dread the days immediately after Christmas. It is then that with stout heart and brave face they are forced to confront the hordes of irrationally dissatisfied customers demanding replacement of an item for reasons of wrong size, wrong colour or just plain wrong, and this at a time when stocks are severely depleted. Oh to be a retailer now that the holidays are over!
    There are probably as many theories about the holiday’s roots as there are about the way to make a perfect dry martini cocktail. I am, undoubtedly, more qualified to discuss the latter than the former. But, by dint of some research, courtesy of Messrs. Snopes and Google, which confirmed that which I had learned at my mother’s knee, I therefore, with total faith as to its veracity, proffer the following as the true origin of Boxing Day, or as it is also known in Britain, St. Stephen’s Day.
    There is general agreement that it is British and it started long-ago as the practice of the upper classes giving gifts of cash or goods to those of the lower classes. On Christmas Day the “nobs” would exchange gifts among themselves but beneficences to those less fortunate were bestowed the day after. It is my own theory that this was a way in which the conscience of the more fortunate “snobs” could be assuaged to some degree!
    Another widely held assertion is that centuries ago members of the merchant class gave boxes of food and fruit to trades people and servants in a form of Yuletide gratuity. This expression of thanks continues to this day in some quarters by the slipping of a few dollars or quid to the paper boy or a bottle of cheer to the building superintendent.
    Yet another origin of a similar nature involves servants in Britain carrying boxes to work on the day after Christmas and presenting these, with due humility no doubt, to their employers. All but the most Scrooge like masters would put coins in the boxes as a form of year end bonus.
Another story, with which I was not familiar until I embarked upon my research, involves alms boxes in churches for seasonal donations to the needy. These were opened on Christmas Day and the contents of the boxes distributed by the clergy the following, or, Boxing Day.
    Which ever way one chooses to think of the origin of Boxing Day the common theme is the one-way gifting to those of a lower social level. In the familiar carol Good King Wenceslas we find him on his last look out giving gifts of meat, wine and firewood to a poor man struggling through the snow “on the Feast of Stephen”. There was never any reciprocity to the social superiors as this would have been seen as a presumption of equality. Not the essence of Boxing Day which was, after all, about preserving class lines.
    Well that’s about it for Boxing Day. As I write this on December 30th I must turn my thoughts to a Scottish tradition which sadly is also not much observed in Beaufort, being that of “first-footing” on Hogmanay.

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