Let's Learn About Boxing Day!

One of my favorite pastimes is saying dumb, outlandish things and watching people give me the strangest looks. It's mad fun!

This sometimes occurs when I'm asked about my favorite holiday. I don't know that I have a favorite holiday, but I always have an answer. I might say April Fool's Day, but if I'm feeling particularly confounding, I'll say Boxing Day.

"What's Boxing Day?" some people ask.

I throw on a facade of fury. "What? How can you not know about the greatest holiday of the year? The first weekday after Christmas? You plebian!"

To be honest, despite by posturing, I didn't really know what Boxing Day is, either.

I thought it was either this, or something to do with Muhammad Ali.

So, after years of ignorance, I set out on this boxing day to determine exactly what it is.

To my surprise, Boxing Day had nothing to do with throwing out your Christmas wrapping, packing up your Christmas decorations, or stiff uppercuts to the jaw. Instead, Boxing Day is another holiday centered around giving.

Way back in the first half of the 1800s, Boxing Day was established in honor of the services done for the general public. Mailmen, errand boys, paid servants, and other servants and tradesmen could be expected to receive some sort of gift from their employer, traditionally served in a box. Thus, the term Boxing Day.

Of course, nowadays, most people only know about Boxing Day as a bank holiday here in the US. Outside the US, Boxing Day is a British Commonwealth shopping day similar to our own Black Friday. And, of course, many non-Americanized sports like football (the original kind), rugby, cricket, and hockey hold pretty big games on this day.

Now you can proudly proclaim you are no longer ignorant of this wonderful holiday! I'm definitely going to give my garbage men a present. What do you think about an old Christmas tree? Everyone wants one of those, yeah?