Boxing Day

As you may or may not know, today is Boxing Day, a holiday of British origin, and celebrated there in in the UK, as well as such places as Canada and Australia. Being a fellow who likes to be in the spirit of the holidays, I called my good friend Clive, who is a gent of British origin living down in south these days. I wanted to wish him a Happy Boxing Day, and to remind him to keep his gloves up and his chin tucked in lest his lovely wife stretch him out with an uppercut. Clive patiently explained that Boxing Day isn't about pugilism, and besides that, the missus just got lucky last year.

"So what is Boxing Day?", I asked. And my education on the subject commenced.

Boxing Day, also known as St Stephen's Day, is the practice of giving goods or money to the more needy. How it got is name seems to be not quite so straight forward.

Theories abound, from alms being collected in the church poor box for distribution, to servants carrying empty boxes to work to be filled with money or a gift of goods from their masters as a sort of end of year bonus for good service. While some stories give the image of a class conscious society (apparently giving a return gift on Boxing Day was considered a statement of equality and not done), however the optimist in me prefers the image of charity towards those who really need it Call me sentimental, but I really do believe it was meant to be that way.

Thanking Clive for the enlightenment, I felt I owed him something for his trouble. So I shared with him the only useful information I had at that moment. "Keep your gloves up!"