So whatcha doin on Boxing Day?

LOL- I have no idea what this holiday is... should go Google it. One of our friends uses it as an excuse to have a day-after-Christmas pizza party. He has a wood-burning pizza oven at his house. :)
 
One theory was that the churches were opening up their alms boxes and distributing the excess monies collected over the year to the poor....to sort of balance their accounts....well we know that one is tossed out...

While it has turned into day after Christmas sales in most places...its origins are along the lines of giving to charity and the less fortunate the excess of the largess you had for Christmas and the year...anyone remember that movie 'Radio'? That scene had this old wimpy curmudgeon in tears.

Our Brits should be able to feed us some more info when they get back from shopping... of course for them since they got Christmas off on Friday, they also get Boxing Day off on Monday...just because these Holydays fall on a weekend they still got to make sure the working man gets his extry days off. Here in the states if Christmas falls on a weekend, unless you work for the Gov't or a big company you may not even get an extry day off at all (and nobody I know gets boxing day)
 
It depends on your work, most folk will be back to work on monday, then off the 1st and 2nd, some get 4 days off at xmas and the new year also. l worked nightshift christmas eve, day and tonight, but will be off for hogmany, hoots mon!
 
Solstice was on Monday, and we don't celebrate Christmas, so it is a time to just spend with family to avoid all the commercial craziness and people rushing around to get places in adverse weather.
 
wil said:
Didja give the servants the day off and let them have all the leftovers and the presents ya didn't want?
Click to expand...

Without looking too much into what this day really means . . .

On this day wil . . . I am going to challenge you to a match in the ring. You are going to get a blood nose and a black eye for no good personal reason whatsoever.:D -- except maybe for asking the question.
 
also so slightly puzzled at the moderation here, its a bit bizarre :confused:
 
we watched the river rise............ and rise........... and rise..............
next day, cleaned up. lol. the weather bureau said 18feet, more like 23feet. lol. today, we cleaned up some more, still have to look for stuff in the woods that floated away. lol. Coming from a land that is in drought to this sure is a "turn up for the books. LOL"........... Still loving it.
God Bless America

Love the Grey
 
I was told when I was younger that Boxing Day was when uni students broke open their savings boxes and got totally blathered. I rather like this explanation although it leaves one feeling warm and fuzzy for different reasons. :p
 
Wiki:


Boxing Day was traditionally a day on which the servants had a day off from their duties. Because of this the gentry would eat cold cuts and have a buffet-style feast prepared by the servants in advance. In modern times many families will still follow this tradition by eating a family-style buffet lunch, with cold cuts rather than a fully-cooked meal. It is a time for family, parlour games and sports in the UK.

The traditional recorded celebration of Boxing Day has long included giving money and other gifts to those who were needy and in service positions. The European tradition has been dated to the Middle Ages, but the exact origin is unknown and there are some claims that it goes back to the late Roman/early Christian era; metal boxes were placed outside churches used to collect special offerings tied to the Feast of Saint Stephen.In the United Kingdom it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their "Christmas boxes" or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year on the day after Christmas. However, the exact etymology of the term "Boxing" is unclear, with several competing theories, none of which is definitively true.

Another possibility is that the name derives from an old English tradition: in exchange for ensuring that wealthy landowners' Christmases ran smoothly, their servants were allowed to take the 26th off to visit their families. The employers gave each servant a box containing gifts and bonuses (and sometimes leftover food). In addition, around the 1800s, churches opened their alms boxes (boxes where people place monetary donations) and distributed the contents to the poor.

The establishment of Boxing Day as a defined public holiday under the legislation that created the UK's Bank Holidays started the separation of 'Boxing Day' from the 'Feast of St Stephen', and today it is almost entirely a secular holiday with a tradition of shopping and post-Christmas sales starting.
 
Wikipedia is always interesting. I should clarify that what I was told was not considered a modern cultural expression but one possible explanation for the origin of Boxing Day, or more likely a later tradition. We celebrate Boxing Day at home by opening yet more presents and spending all day watching movies or relaxing or doing whatever we feel like doing. This year we went for a very cold walk and ate too much.
 
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