IT’S THE DAY after Christmas and its “Boxing Day”. And it has nothing to do with Manny Pacquiao and the sport of boxing, professional or otherwise. In fact the only sports associated with “Boxing Day” are football, rugby and running.
Perhaps the closest we can have to boxing in “Boxing Day”, as in exchanging blows with your fist, is that when during a match or race two footballers, rugby players or runners decided to slug it out instead of kicking the ball or running.
It is not even a day set aside for relatives to punch each other just because they don’t like the silly gifts they received or for a wife to punch her husband or vice versa because either one was caught kissing someone else underneath the mistletoe last night.
In short, nobody boxes on “Boxing Day”. So what do they do on that date which falls on Dec. 26 or the day after Christmas Day? And why do they call it “Boxing Day”?
Has anybody even heard much less observe “Boxing Day” in the Philippines?
Unless, of course, you’re an expat from Great Britain or from any of the members of the Commonwealth – meaning countries now independent but were former colonies i. e. Australia or Hong-Kong.
Moi is an Anglophile, and before you start having kinky and erotic visions, an Anglophile is a non-English person who is friendly to or admires England or English customs, culture, etc.
Hence you can see my preference for the music of Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, the works of Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle and, of course, football to name a few.
On top of it all, for almost two decades I have been Director of an animal welfare nongovernment organization based and funded in the United Kingdom or England, meaning I have worked, broke bread and shared bottles of wine and pints of beer with Englishmen and women.
And I have spent some time in England and Scotland so one can say I am quite familiar with “Boxing Day” and have never associated it with boxing the sport.
So really what is “Boxing Day”?
From that free online encyclopedia a.k.a. the internet:
Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated the day after Christmas Day. It originated in the United Kingdom and is celebrated in a number of countries that previously formed part of the British Empire. Boxing Day is on 26 December, although the attached bank holiday or public holiday may take place either on that day or two days later.
There are competing theories for the origins of the term, none of which are definitive. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the earliest attestations from Britain in the 1830s, defining it as “the first week-day after Christmas-day, observed as a holiday on which post-men, errand-boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a “Christmas box.”
The term “Christmas box” dates back to the 17th century, and among other things meant:
A present or gratuity given at Christmas: in Great Britain, usually confined to gratuities given to those who are supposed to have a vague claim upon the donor for services rendered to him as one of the general public by whom they are employed and paid, or as a customer of their legal employer; the undefined theory being that as they have done offices for this person, for which he has not directly paid them, some direct acknowledgement is becoming at Christmas.
And that, folks, is “Boxing Day” – a day reserved actually for the working class, the hoi polloi to also have some Christmas cheer and holiday as on Christmas Day they are supposed to serve their employers or the Lord of the Manor as the case may be.
The sad part, of course, is that it is the day after Christmas. While the rich enjoy the holiday celebrations their servants don’t as they have to serve them and just pretend that “Boxing Day” is their Christmas Day.
In Britain, it was a custom for tradesmen to collect “Christmas boxes” of money or presents on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year. This custom is linked to an older British tradition: since they would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day to visit their families. The employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts, bonuses, and sometimes leftover food.
Those long-ago gifts were done up in boxes, hence the day coming to be known as “Boxing Day.”
These “boxes” given by the employers to their employees were the early forms of “Christmas Bonus.” Hence we can say that the 13th month bonus employees now are enjoying had its origins from “Boxing Day.”/PN
