Graham Thirkill Loc: Idylic North Yorkshire, England UK.

So When Is Boxing Day?
December 26th, is Boxing Day and is a holiday celebrated in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and other Commonwealth countries. Boxing Day originated in England in the middle of the nineteenth century under Queen Victoria. 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) In the UK it's classed as a Bank Holiday.

Tue 26th December 2017
Wed 26th December 2018
Thur 26th December 2019
Sat 26th December 2020
Sun 26th December 2021


Why Is Boxing Day Called Boxing Day?
Boxing Day is so called because it was the custom on that day for tradesmen to collect their Christmas boxes or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year. Boxing Day is also St. Stephen's Day. St Stephen was a little known saint who achieved eternal fame by being the first Christian to be martyred for his faith by being stoned to death shortly after Christ's crucifixion. He's also named in the Christmas song Good King Wenceslas

How Do We Spend Boxing Day?
Boxing Day is spent with family and friends at open gatherings with lots of food, fun, friendship and love. Food on Boxing Day usually includes left over turkey from the day before. This can be eaten in sandwiches or as a meal with vegetables, roast potatoes and all the trimmings. Some people like to have cold ham in a buffet style so the cook can also have a rest and spend time with the family.

Panto Season – Oh No It’s Not… Oh Yes It Is!
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without seeing a traditional Boxing Day pantomime with the kids. Nothing gets you in the festive spirit like watching classic family favourites such as Dick Whittington, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty, Peter Pan, Cinderella or Hansel and Gretel.

Panto for short is a traditional Christmas play where audience participation is expected. Kids love getting involved by shouting out “It’s behind you” or “Oh no it’s not, Oh yes it is.” All the stars come out to take part and dress up as pantomime dames such as Widow Twankey which is always portrayed by a man. Other well known pantomime characters include her sons Wishy Washy and Aladdin.

The Wren Boys Of Ireland
In Ireland, Boxing Day is known as "St Stephen's Day" and is famous for its "Wren Boys". Tradition says that to kill a wren is unlucky unless it's on Boxing Day. St Stephen was killed, reportedly stoned to death, for believing in Jesus. In Ireland many years ago the Wren Boys would go out with blackened faces from burnt cork and would stone Wrens to death. They would then tie them to a pole decorated with holly and ribbons and carry their catch around the town knocking at doors and asking for money, food or a gift. In return for a donation the recipient received a feather from the Wren as a thank you.

Today this barbaric act has stopped and the Wren boys go around town in fancy dress (usually women's clothing) carrying a stuffed bird in a cage. Wren Boys sing carols and collect money that they give to charity.

Shopping And The Boxing Day Sales
While government buildings and small businesses are closed, the malls are filled with people either exchanging gifts or buying reduced priced Christmas gifts, cards, and decorations. Many children like to go and spend their gift vouchers that they received on Christmas Day.

Most shops and department stores have reduced opening times and usually operate a Sunday time period. In Britain opening times are 10-4pm but some retailers open really early, typically 5am and offer huge discounts and sale items to attract people instore. It's quite common to see long queues forming early in the morning or overnight as shoppers are eager to grab the bargains on offer.

Many stores have had to implement crowd control by limiting entrances and the number of shopper's instore at any one time. Some are now issuing tickets that guarantee them the hot product they have queued up to buy. Due to the popularity of the Boxing Day sales many stores are now running Boxing Weeks where bargains can be had in the days before and the days after Boxing day. With many people now owning personal connected devices it's far easier to sneak away from the festivities and family on Christmas Day and Boxing Day to do a bit of online shopping via their mobiles or tablets. It's believed that 32% of people will be logging on on Christmas Day, motivated by the fear of missing out on a bargain.

Shop-And-Stay Malls
For people living in Australia shopping on Boxing Day just got a little easier. The Eastland Shopping Centre has just opened a brand new, 120 room hotel right above it. The hotel is offering shoppers the chance to stay the night after a long day or give them a head start on being the first in the stores the following morning.

Many shoppers have realised this means that on Boxing Day they can be refreshed and in the ideal spot to hit the shops. Many rooms for Christmas night have already been booked up and the hotel is expecting it to be very busy on the eve of Boxing Day. Shop and stay options are becoming more popular across Melbourne with additional shopping centres either planning or are in the construction phase of building onsite hotels or apartments.
Keep Boxing Day Shops Closed Campaign
In 2016 there was a campaign in the UK to ban the opening of shops on Boxing Day to give shop workers a much needed day off. The petition created by baker Ian Lapworth was aimed at putting an end to the commercialisation of Christmas. The petition amassed 235,000 signatures and was delivered to Theresa May Prime Minister. The petition did not succeed as the government has previously stated that they will not tell any retailers what to do - it's for them to decide commercially if they wish to open or not. A survey of shoppers in 2016 revealed that 84% thought that shops should be closed so shop staff can spend 2 days away from work with their family and loved ones.
How We Spend Our Boxing Day Money
Britain's retail sector is celebrating a record-breaking year as official figures reveal an all-time high for sales in 2016 with sales for the year reaching £400bn - a £100bn increase since 2010. In 2016 shoppers spent £3.84 billion in the Boxing Day Sales up 6% on 2015 with online retailers having their biggest and busiest day with sales of £856 million up 22.5% on last year’s £699m.

Online shoppers spent an amazing £519,000 every minute which meant that high street shops were quieter than the year before. 78% of all Boxing Day transactions took place in stores although online sales were very strong. An estimated 22 million people visited the high streets and websites looking for deals with many retailers starting their discounts online on Christmas Eve. Pre-Christmas sales are up by 2.6% compared with last year. Britain's retail successes have been credited in part to national promotional days like Black Friday and Panic Saturday. One survey discovered that 18% of shoppers were bored and were shopping as something exciting to do where as 15% were looking to buy replacements for Christmas gifts they received that they did not like.

Boxing Day Events
Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day is classed as the Christmas Season with Boxing Day falling on the following Monday if December 26th falls on a Saturday or Sunday. Relaxing on Boxing Day is what the majority of people do but some people get out and take part in sporting events. Football matches and horse racing as well as shopping in the sales are some of the popular Boxing Day past times.

Football Fixtures 2017
Traditionally, football matches on Boxing Day are played against local rivals. This ideas was to avoid teams and their supporters having to travel long distances to away games the day after Christmas Day. The Boxing Day match is also a very popular event in the sporting calendar. While major European leagues take a break after Christmas, the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal, will be back out on the pitch looking to score a vital three points. Boxing Day is always one of the big match days of the Premier League season, so who's set to be in action.

Premier League 2017 Boxing Day fixtures in full

• 15:00 Bournemouth v West Ham United
• 15:00 Chelsea v Brighton and Hove Albion
• 15:00 Crystal Palace v Arsenal
• 15:00 Huddersfield Town v Stoke City
• 15:00 Liverpool v Swansea City
• 15:00 Manchester United v Burnley
• 15:00 Newcastle United v Manchester City
• 15:00 Tottenham Hotspur v Southampton
• 15:00 Watford v Leicester City
• 15:00 West Bromwich Albion v Everton

The Boxing Day Traditional Dip
The Boxing Day Dip is a charity event where people in fancy dress swim in the sea on Boxing Day. There are several such dips held around Europe, but the largest is organised by the Lions Club of Sunderland, England.

The dip takes place at Seaburn beach in Sunderland with temperatures in the North Sea around 9.5C (49F). This very popular event regularly attracts over 1,000 brave souls and over 5,000 spectators. They raised over £47,000 in 2016. Participants are expected to wear fancy dress and jump into the North Sea though most only go in as far as their knees then come out again. The oldest dip is the Tenby Boxing Day Swim in Pembrokeshire, Wales, which started in 1970. A roaring bonfire meets the swimmers coming out of the sea and all participants receive a medal for bravery.

Travel On Boxing Day
Boxing Day is a holiday for most people so travel will be very restricted on public transport. Usually no trains run on Boxing Day and busses will be running to a Sunday schedule. Expect taxis and black cabs to increase their fares by around £4 - £5 a journey. Most airports will be operating as normal so ensure that you allow plenty of time to get there if you're intending to travel by public transport. Top get away destinations for Brits this Boxing Day include, Dubai, Barcelona, Tenerife, Benidorm and New York.

Highways England will try to remove or suspend as many roadworks as possible over the festive period to make travel easier for the motorist. Try to avoid Friday 22nd December 2017 as this is predicted to be the busiest time for travel as people are out shopping and leaving early from work for their festive break. The AA predicts that the most-likely traffic hotspots are where there are shopping centres close to motorway interchanges, such as Lakeside and Bluewater centres off the M25 in Essex, Cribbs Causeway off the M5 at Bristol, Sheffield's Meadowhall Centre off the M1 and the Metrocentre off the A1 at Gateshead in north east England.

Cheers and Beers
Graham
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Boxing Day Sales

EX-TELCO Loc: Belen,New Mexico

Good man Graham, Always giving a good read. thank you.

Graham Thirkill Loc: Idylic North Yorkshire, England UK.

My pleasure my friend, Compliments of the season to you and yours,

Cheers and Beers
Graham
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W5RA Loc: Walker, Louisiana

Really enjoyed learning more about Boxing Day! Thanks for the info Graham!

Charlie

DragonsLady Loc: Los Alamos, NM

Very enjoyable read. Thanks.

chase4 Loc: Punta Corona, California

Graham - As an uneducated Gringo, I enjoyed this post about Boxing Day. I sent it on to a good friend, originally from England but relocated to Canada about 10 years ago. Here are his comments on this "holiday":

Yes, the madness of the Masses.

My Boxing Days were spent feeding 1000 pigs. Didn’t mind that. One of them provided me with my Christmas roast, along with crackling, apple sauce, sprouts with chestnuts etc., but I found the general situation in UK to be much less attractive than your friend describes.

I generally found the two whole weeks to be a time of national idleness from before Christmas to after the New Year. If you wanted to invade England, do it about 02:00h on Christmas morning. The whole place would be yours by New Year’s Day. I have never enjoyed shopping, but in real life I found some vital piece of kit needing to be replaced over Christmas, the milking machine stops sucking, a burst pipe, a faulty tap washer, a beastly ballcock, a flood or some-such requiring an extra delivery of animal feed, and can you get any of these during that time? Not likely.

All of this is made so much worse when you get a White Christmas. Not too common in the soft South of England, but when there was one I had to shovel yards of passageways before I could push the food trolley. And if a single snowflake falls on the House of Commons, it is rated a national disaster with headlines such as “Snow in Channel. Continent cut off”. How I wish it were true. All this in spite of the fact that the north of England and Scotland get snow every year. No newspaper south of Watford ever reports this, unless it is to explain why the Christmas turkey will be late in coming because of snow on the turkey farms or the ‘wrong sort of snow’ on the rail tracks.

This is one of the reasons farmers are so creative in their repairs, so multi-skilled, and so crusty about people complaining about the cost of food (with their mouths full), or the niff from the pig farm, or “Why can I not get strawberries on Christmas day?”

When I started farming in 1949 folks spent nearly 20% of their income on food. Today it is about 8%. Meat, eggs, milk, bread and newspapers were delivered to the door. The delivery boys were a fund of local knowledge long before television and FaceAche. Twitter was real, from the morning chorus.

The bulk of people’s income is now spent on getting away from it all in some sunny clime. Never such an opportunity while farming, though I occasionally found time to shoot pheasants on Boxing day with my chums.

And people wonder why I am so ‘Bah Humbug’ about Christmas. It started when I discovered the lie of Father Christmas. What really hacked me off was to find that all adults were part of the conspiracy. I suppose you could say that disappointment was the beginning of wisdom.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a very Happy Christmas. I must return to walking the dogs in the kennel, and picking up the dog shit. I often ponder as I do it, how I used to move tons of the stuff on the farm, with enjoyment. It was warm work and I convinced myself that it was the smell of money. I have to remind myself that my present situation and the reasons for it are roughly the same, only on a smaller scale, though the end product has no value like the FYM of my youth.

Don’t be offended by this rant. I am feeling much better now. I cannot tell you how happy I am to have come to Canada, escaped from the beastly Brussels, married an incredible woman, and doing something I enjoy using the skills I have picked up in a lifetime of moving animals about the world. And the escape from all this? My cozy workshop where I can use the multi-tasking skills from my youth to make anything from animal containers to mending dog leashes and sharpening grooming scissors.

Heigh ho.

KenW Loc: Portland OR

I miss celebrating Boxing Day in the UK. We observed it when Dad was stationed at RAF Sculthorpe in the 1950's . Go Norwich F. C.

DragonsLady Loc: Los Alamos, NM

I found your friend's memories enlightening. Although I always knew there were others who didn't get as much as we did, the glimpse inside the rural experience was good. Glad you sent the original to your friend.

Graham Thirkill Loc: Idylic North Yorkshire, England UK.

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If this man started farming in 1949 he must be in, or near his nineties, I must say he still writes a good account for himself and his past life in Blighty. God bless him.
If anyone doesn't know what 'FYM' stands for, I have googled it and stands for "Farm Yard Manure".

Season's greetings to all
Graham
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