Dec. 26th is "Boxing Day" here . . .

Boxing Day is a public holiday celebrated only in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and many other members of the Commonwealth of Nations on December 26, the day after Christmas Day.

Origins

Boxing Day is not about the sport of boxing, contrary to common belief. The celebration is traditional, dating back to the middle ages, and consisted of the practice of giving of gifts to employees, the poor, or to people in a lower social class. The name has numerous folk etymologies; the Oxford English Dictionary attributes it to the Christmas box; the verb box meaning: "To give a Christmas-box, hence boxing-day."

Folk etymologies

The more common stories include:

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

• Because the staff had to work on such an important day as Christmas by serving the master of the house and their family, they were given the following day off. As servants were kept away from their own families to work on a traditional religious holiday and were not able to celebrate Christmas Dinner, the customary benefit was to "box" up the leftover food from Christmas Day and send it away with the servants and their families. (Similarly, as the servants had the 26th off, the owners of the manor may have had to serve themselves pre-prepared, boxed food for that one day.) Hence the "boxing" of food became "Boxing Day".

• Leftovers and food were boxed up and shipped overseas in times of war to the soldiers of the Commonwealth Nations.