Happy Boxing Day!

[Chuckanut]

Enjoy Boxing Day all of your people in Canada, the UK, Ireland and other places who get another day off.

For the uninitiated:

It is not enough for us to have only Christmas Day celebrations, we have added on this other event called Boxing Day. But the answer is not that simple.Boxing Day is a national Bank Holiday, a day to spend with family and friends and to eat up all the leftovers of Christmas Day. The origins of the day, however, are steeped in history and tradition.
Why?

Arguments abound on the origins of the name Boxing Day. All the answers below are valid, so maybe it is one, or even all of them.

• A ‘Christmas Box’ in Britain is a name for a Christmas present.
• Boxing Day was traditionally a day off for servants and the day when they received a ‘Christmas Box’ from the master. The servants would also go home on Boxing Day to give ‘Christmas Boxes’ to their families.

 

[Meadbh]

Happy St. Stephen's Day!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen's_Day

 

[6miths]

Boxing Day in Canada would also be the equivalent of 'Black Friday' in terms of sales.

 

[Chuckanut]

Boxing Day in Canada would also be the equivalent of 'Black Friday' in terms of sales.

The last time I was in Canada on Boxing Day most stores where closed. Of course, that was a good 10+ years ago and things may have changed.

 

[Nemo2]

The last time I was in Canada on Boxing Day most stores where closed. Of course, that was a good 10+ years ago and things may have changed.

Local mall open today from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. As to other stores, no idea...we haven't left the house.

 

[Meadbh]

The last time I was in Canada on Boxing Day most stores where closed. Of course, that was a good 10+ years ago and things may have changed.

I don't know what part of Canada you were visiting, but it's not my experience. Not that I would ever darken the door of a mall on Boxing Day!

 

[6miths]

Yes things have changed. Boxing Day is now more like a Bank and government holiday. Retail is generally open but not anything like Black Friday hours.

 

[MRG]

I've always had a fascination with the holiday. It was poorly explained to me at first by a fellow American in the UK. After that a few folks couldn't explain it any better than to say it was an excuse to close business and drink beer.

Have a great holiday!

 

[Alan]

I talked to my sister in England today via Skype, shortly after she returned from shopping in the Boxing day sales. It is nothing like the scale of Black Friday in the USA. She told me that most of the stores in the town centre (Middlesbrough) where closed except for 3 department stores.

I was in England at Christmas 2009 when my Dad died. On Boxing Day I walked into the town centre of where my family lived and all the stores were closed. (Pop. of town ~25,000). However Boxing day is a big sporting day including a full soccer schedule and when we drove into Sunderland 5 miles away, to see Sunderland play Everton I could see that many of the big department stores were open.

Growing up we always used Boxing Day to visit our grandparents who lived a couple of miles away. As a family we would walk there together rain, snow or sun (no bus services on Boxing Day). Great memories.