How did the Boxing Day Holiday originate?

Filed in archive Noteworthy on December 26, 2006

I was talking to one of my US clients and mentioned "Boxing Day" and he asked me what that was all about and I said "The national holiday the day after Christmas Day." Apparently, our US neighbors do not celebrate Boxing Day and only get Christmas Day off.

It got me thinking about the origin of the Boxing Day holiday here in Canada. So, stopped by Wikipedia and found six suggestions on the origins of Boxing Day.

Apparently, Boxing Day is a British, European, and Canadian tradition. But there were two origins of the six that caught my eye.

This one make sense from a practical working guys perspective.

Because the staff had to work on such an important day as Christmas Day by serving the master of the house and their family, they were given the following day off. Since being kept away from their own families to work on a traditional religious holiday and not being able to celebrate Christmas Dinner, the customary benefit was to 'box' up the left over food from Christmas Day and send it away with the servants and their families. Hence the 'boxing' of food became 'boxing day'. Via Wikipedia

This one makes me laugh, like the wealthy have nothing else to do:

The origins of Boxing Day can be traced back to regular punch-ups caused by excessive intake of alcohol by the aristocracy. It became popular and a pastime for families with unsettled issues of wealth and status. Via Wikipedia

This is also an interesting entry in Wikipedia's Boxing Day entry:

In Canada, Boxing Day is observed as a holiday, except for those in the retail business. Boxing Day and the days immediately following are when many retail stores sell their Christmas and retired model products by holding clearance sales. Some shoppers will line up for hours at night (sometimes before midnight and after midnight on December 26) for retailers to open their doors. Retailers often open their stores earlier than usual, such as 6 or 7 am. Some retail companies internally refer to the sales week after Christmas as the "thirteenth month."