Time to...
Today is Boxing Day!
But, what does this mean? What is Boxing Day?
After searching around for a while I figured out that nobody really knows the origin. There is speculation to two separate events, but as to which one is true. The underlying principle is it is a time to giving.
Possibility One: As noted in Time Magazine, ”
The best clue to Boxing Day’s origins can be found in the song “Good King Wenceslas.” According to the Christmas carol, Wenceslas, who was Duke of Bohemia in the early 10th century, was surveying his land on St. Stephen’s Day — Dec. 26 — when he saw a poor man gathering wood in the middle of a snowstorm. Moved, the King gathered up surplus food and wine and carried them through the blizzard to the peasant’s door. The alms-giving tradition has always been closely associated with the Christmas season — hence the canned-food drives and Salvation Army Santas that pepper our neighborhoods during the winter — but King Wenceslas’ good deed came the day after Christmas, when the English poor received most of their charity.
King Wenceslas didn’t start Boxing Day, but the Church of England might have. During Advent, Anglican parishes displayed a box into which churchgoers put their monetary donations. On the day after Christmas, the boxes were broken open and their contents distributed among the poor, thus giving rise to the term Boxing Day. Maybe.”
The other version: Also, according to Time Magazine, “The day after Christmas was also the traditional day on which the aristocracy distributed presents (boxes) to servants and employees — a sort of institutionalized Christmas-bonus party. The servants returned home, opened their boxes and had a second Christmas on what became known as Boxing Day.”
Boxing day has always been a time to give, but as the holiday has evolved over time it is more of a time of gathering and celebrating… more-over a roll over from Christmas.
Either way you spend Boxing Day, be happy for what you have, give what you can, and celebrate life.
Happy Holidays!
Tomorrow: Make Cut Out Snowflake Day.
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