Boxing Day/St Stephen's Day

[Birchy]

So when Boxing Day falls on a Sunday it's the Feast of St Stephen? Does this apply all over the Christian World, or is it a British thing since "Boxing Day" is British?

[ursula62]

They celebrate Boxing Day in Australia, New Zealand and Canada too (although I suppose technically they were all once British !)

 

St Stephens day is always on 26 December, whether its a Sunday or not. It's just that British diaries don't always mention the saints days, unlike European ones.

 

Boxing Day, however, is usually the first weekday after Christmas.  Its origins are not completely clear. Some suggest that it dates back to the times when large houses used to let their servants go home to see relatives, and take boxes of leftover Christmas food to their families. Other theories include the idea that in Mediaeval times priests used to open the collecting boxes and distribute the contents among the poor of the parish. A Victorian addition to Boxing Day was to give gifts, or christmas boxes to the tradespeople who had served you during the year, e.g. the postman, paper boy, dustman, coalman, milkman etc. This tradition still continues today, although most of the tradespeople collect their "Christmas box" well before Christmas Eve these days.

 

St Stephen was the patron saint of horses, which is why there is often horse racing and/or hunts on Boxing Day / St Stephen's day.

[Ewood27]

When my father was a child, around 1900, the children had to line up facing the wall on Boxing Day with a stick over their shoulder having a string and a hook on it, like a primitive fishing rod.  His father would then hook the children's Christmas presents ("boxes") onto the strings.  That was his explanation of the term Boxing. Day.  Christmas Day itself was treated as a religious festival, not sullied with presents and shrieking children.