Happy Boxing Day!
In the UK, today is known as “Boxing Day.” It’s the day after Christmas, and in my family, it was the day we would go visit relatives. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was for us a time for immediate family. We rarely had others over, and I don’t recall ever being anywhere other than home on Christmas Day. Boxing Day, however, was a different matter. I seem to recall it is considered a holiday (even a bank holiday–kind of like a federal holiday in the US), but I could be mis-remembering that. When I worked at Toys R Us (see post from last Thursday), we were open on Boxing Day and we had special check out lanes set up solely for returns (i.e., people bringing back Christmas gifts they didn’t want), so at least retail stores were open.
I’m not sure where the term “Boxing Day” originally came from. The best explanation I’ve heard is that in times past, rich people would box up all their leftover food (and maybe unwanted gifts?) and give the boxes of stuff to the poor and needy. Whether or not this is true, it sounds like a great idea.
Anyway, however you are celebrating Boxing Day, I hope you have a happy one!
It’s Boxing Day here in Canada too! A lot of people have the day off, but retail is booming. It used to be that all of the stores had big blowout Boxing Day sales, but now it has turned into big blowout Boxing Week sales. Because it’s not like people didn’t already get a ton for Christmas (*eye roll*). Some people will even wait to buy their gifts for people on Boxing Day because it’s just so much cheaper (kind of like our version of Black Friday).
I kind of like your tradition of keeping Christmas Day to immediate family and using Boxing Day to visit other relatives. My husband and I just spent the last three days driving all over the place to visit family. It gets pretty tiring year after year to be doing that and it would just be wonderful to wake up in your own home and not have to leave. We just may have to adopt this tradition.
Hope your Christmas was a good one! 🙂
That was my family’s tradition growing up. My wife’s family have always gathered together with her mom for Christmas, and that’s what we have done for as long as I’ve been in the States. It’s nice to gather everyone together for Christmas, but it is a lot of work, and we bring a lot with us, which can be stressful for others. Last year we had Christmas just with our immediate family for the first time since we’ve been here. It was a nice change, but I’m sure my wife missed the traditional family gathering. I don’t really have a preference. One day our kids will all have flown the nest, and I’m sure we’ll hope they’ll all want to come home at Christmas. 🙂
Being an American by birth and living in the South, I can honestly say I have no idea what Boxing Day is or how it should be celebrated. But your way seems pretty good to me! Whenever I hear this holiday mentioned, I always think of the sport of boxing and in my mind I picture boxers celebrating themselves in rings across the world. My idea probably isn’t right, but it feels sort of like it should be. Those boxers need a holiday too, right? 😀 Anyway, Happy Boxing Day!
Yes, it does sound like some kind of pugilistic celebration. 🙂 We probably should do something like the actual meaning of the day (give stuff away)–it seems like it would be an appropriate counterbalance to the previous day’s gift-getting.
Have a great Boxing Day, Bailey! 🙂
Yes, it’s definitely a bank holiday here in England, and it was used for visiting when I was a kid too. Now we just chill out and laugh at people who are battling the sales 🙂
It sounds as if Boxing Day could become like Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) here in the US–the day for sales and deals. But while Black Friday is trying to capitalize on the run-up to Christmas, perhaps retailers in the UK (and the Commonwealth) are just trying to unload overstocks from Christmas! This is certainly the case here–my wife saw Christmas candy on sale today. 🙂
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