31 Jan 2016

19 Boxing Day Celebration

Posted in Events By On January 31, 2016

Boxing Day is a holiday traditionally celebrated the weekday or Saturday following Christmas Day, when servants and tradesmen would receive gifts, known as a “Christmas box”, from their masters, employers or customers, it was also traditional that servants got the day off to celebrate Christmas with their families on Boxing Day. Before World War II, it was common for working people such as milkmen and butchers to travel round their delivery places and collect their Christmas box or tip. This tradition has now mostly stopped and any Christmas tips, given to people such as postal workers and newspaper delivery children, are not normally given or collected on Boxing Day. As time went by, Boxing Day gift giving expanded to include those who had rendered a service during the previous year. This tradition survives today as people give presents to tradesmen, mail carriers, doormen, porters, and others who have helped them. Boxing Day is an institution in the British calendar but there is no common consensus as to how it got its name. According to some it can be traced back to the Victorian era when churches often displayed a box into which their parishioners put donations.