Off Topic - Brits Boxing Day

[insomniaczzz]

Any Brits out there? What exactly do you do on Boxing Day? I know the traditional meaning of this holiday. A day for servants and staff that had to work Christmas Day to spend with there own families. They would box up left over holiday food and such and take home.

Does this holiday now have a different meaning? It seems to me that it is just another freebie day off work for most, much like a lot of American holidays.

 

[Canuck147]

Not a Brit, but Canada has affiliations with the monarch. And yes, it is just another stat holiday off with pay. Another big sale day, but the internet is taking a whack off of there business. I kinda remember reading also that even if they had no servants, people would put what they didn't need in boxes left out at their door steps. Thus enticing conversations with all the common folk, not like now when half the common folk have their faces staring at the ground encouraging their thumbs to work faster.

 

[insomniaczzz]

As I thought. I suppose that leftover food is still taken to homeless shelters, etc.......but with more rigid standards these days (at least here is the U.S.) they types of places cannot accept just anyone's food. Must be in original containers, uncooked, etc. Now we do have a few restaurants is our city (I live in the 'burbs) that keep their doors open for about an after closing time to offer what is left for free instead of it just going in the garbage. They will fill a take out container and off you go.

Also I know that Panera Bread (not sure if this is nationwide) packages all unsold bread and baked goods to be used the next day at soup kitchens, etc.

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

In our family we like to strive towards the full 12 days of Christmas -- eat, drink, be merry throughout. I shed a tear when I see Christmas trees out on the curb on Dec 26.
When we were youngsters (in the old country) and my parents went out of town for Boxing Day we used to get dressed up in tuxes and ballgowns and have a formal dinner party replete with a course of psilocybins --- ahh the good old days.

For me all 12 days are about the midwinter festival. The darkest times of the year, the shortest and coldest days, the bleak midwinter -- and our answer to that is maniacal merriment.

This said, I'm in Florida right now and it's 85 degrees! Nonetheless our Boxing day was more of the same from Christmas day just without the presents.

Debauch aside I would like to see it become a day of good works and charitable doings, I think that would be a wonderful counterpoint to Christmas day. Give your neighbor a nug day perhaps?

I've never in my life indulged in the shopping frenzies of Boxing Day or Black Friday or the like.

 

[insomniaczzz]

Black Friday disgusts me. The day before, people all across America are giving thanks for what they've got, the importantance of family and love over material things. the next day they are out there pushing and shoveling to get that last toy on the shelf that the kid wants.

Now I realize not all people act this way, not even the majority, but this is what they show on tv so it intensifies that idea that starts to manifest in your brain.

The origin of Boxing Day is such a lovely idea, and I'm sure there are still those in the minority that honor it the way it was meant. But just as certain holidays in American, its just day of work or school going to the mall to get all the after Christmas bargains.

 

[Beach_Town_Brit]

I rather agree, and yet the Black Friday retail frenzy is now a whole big thing in the UK ... where they don't even celebrate Thanksgiving!

 

[Saturn]

As a Brit Boxing Day has always been a part of the whole Christmas shebang, that said we don't do anything too different to the other Chrsitmas holiday days - dinner with family, probably left over turkey, possibly left over crackers etc. We would try to get out for a walk in the country (weather permitting) most years.

I hate the massive commercialisation of Christmas - worse and worse over my lifetime to date - now we're trying to re-focus on a family time and to share food and really reduce the amount of presents/ buying stuff we don't need / waste.