What
History says
By John Blanshe Musinguzi
Does
it mean that you must box someone on boxing day in order to celebrate?, does it
mean second Christmas?. One of my neighbors
simply call it the day of St Stephen while another one has nothing to say about
Boxing Day.
However this is a day which had history
and meaning from country to another. Many theories have been developed to
explain the origin and meaning of Boxing Day.
Origin
according to Times 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.
But wait: there’s another possible
story about the holiday’s origin. 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.
So which version is correct? Well,
both. Or neither. No one, it seems, is really sure. Both the church boxes and
the servant presents definitely existed, although historians disagree on which
practice inspired the holiday. But Boxing Day’s origins aren’t especially
important to modern-day Brits — Britain isn’t known for its religious festivals
and few people can afford to have servants anymore, anyway.
Today’s Boxing Day
festivities have very little to do with charity. Instead, they revolve around
food, football, visits from friends, food and drinking at the pub.
Boxing Day has been a national
holiday in England, Wales, Ireland and
Canada since 1871. For years in which the holiday falls on a weekend, the
celebration is moved to make sure workers still get a day off (except in
Canada, where it remains Dec. 26), but since visits to Grandma and other family
obligations are fulfilled on Christmas, there isn’t anything left to do on
Boxing Day except eat leftovers, drink and watch TV. Just as Americans watch
football on Thanksgiving, the Brits have Boxing Day soccer matches and horse
races. If they’re particularly wealthy or live in the country, they might even
participate in a fox hunt.
The annual Boxing Day fox hunts —
which have been held all over the English countryside for hundreds of years —
were imperiled in 2005 when Parliament banned the traditional method of using
dogs to kill the prey. Despite the dogs’ limited role (they can still chase the
animal, but they can’t harm it) hundreds of thousands of people turn out at
Boxing Day fox hunts around Britain.
The Irish still refer to the holiday
as St. Stephen’s Day, and they have their own tradition called hunting the
wren, in which boys fasten a fake wren to a pole and parade it through town.
Also known as Wren Day, the tradition supposedly dates to 1601, to the Battle
of Kinsale, in which the Irish tried to sneak up on the English invaders but were
betrayed by the song of an overly vocal wren — although this legend’s veracity
is also highly debated. Years ago, a live wren was hunted and killed for the
parade, but modern sentiments deemed it too gruesome.
In my
view, one of the traditions the church can re-start is collecting money for the
poor. Then on this day boxes be opened and what is collected be distributed to
the poor or those suffering in war tone countries such as South Sudan.
As you
celebrate this day remember to discuss this issue with your church leader and if
possible, next year, we can again start the historical traditions of this day.
Unlimited Christmas
day enjoyment continues