Boxing Day

Hello, Peanut here!

I was curious of the fact that the day after Christmas day is called Boxing day in English. I was promised to write something about this in the blog, but I could never find a conclusive answer as to why the day is called Boxing day. This is why there was no blog entry yesterday, so the fault for that is mine.

There seem to be many competing theories on the origin of the name. Karstuhl even said many of the theories may be correct, but I am not sure if she is pulling my leg or if she really means that.

One theory is that, on Boxing day, you could put gifts to the poor in boxes sitting outside churches. Another theory is that servants used to have the day after Christmas free, to go home to their families, and that they used to get boxes of gifts from their employers to bring home with them. In Britain, tradesmen later used to collect Christmas boxes of money or presents the first weekday after Christmas.

Whatever the origin may be, I think it is easier in Swedish. The name "annandag jul" simply means "Second day of Christmas". You do not have to have a more complicated name than that.