Thread: Did we miss Boxing Day?

Boxing Day was yesterday in United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

What is Boxing Day? You tell me? All I know is that I missed it.

So Happy(late) Boxing Day!!

Another holiday where people wrap and give presents, usually to the less fortunate or lower class.

Origins
Boxing Day is a traditional celebration dating back to the Middle Ages, of which the primary practice is the giving of gifts to employees, the poor, or to people in a lower social class. The name has numerous folk etymologies[3].


Christmas box
A Christmas box is, in English tradition, a clay box used in artisan shops. Apprentices, masters, visitors, customers, and others would put donations of money into the box, like a piggy bank, and then, after Christmas, the box would be shattered and all the contents shared among the workers of the shop. Thus, masters and customers could donate bonuses to the workers without anything direct, and the employees could average their wages. The habit of breaking the Christmas box lent its name to Boxing Day. The term "Christmas box" now refers generally to a gift or pay bonus given to workers.

The Oxford English Dictionary attributes it to the Christmas box; the verb box meaning: "To give a Christmas-box (colloq.); hence the term boxing-day." Outside the Commonwealth, the holiday is sometimes called "St. Stephen's Day".

It was the day when people would give a present or Christmas box to those who had worked for them throughout the year.
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.