Boxing Day: a Christmas hangover 

Today is Boxing Day. It’s a Christmas hangover holiday, which the countries of the British Commonwealth observe on December 26. 

However, like most British (‘bank’) holidays, it has no modern significance. It merely provides lazy Englishmen (and the people they ‘colonized’) a pretext for another day off from work.

The historical hijinks of Boxing Day

Despite its name, Boxing Day has little to do with pugilistic revelry. Nor does it have anything to do with discarding boxes that once housed Christmas cheer. 

Indeed, it involved boxes, but not in the way you might think. Simply put, Boxing Day was traditionally when the servants of the well-to-do received their Christmas boxes – a quaint term for bonuses or gifts. How British, right?

But it’s a testament to the lingering influence of the British Empire that its former colonies celebrate this day just as heartily. It’s a unifying thread, a shared day of recovery, as though the entire Commonwealth collectively agreed to hit the snooze button the day after Christmas.

A day of loafing

It’s a curious thing, Boxing Day. On the one hand, it retains its unassuming charm as a holiday hangover, a day of rest after the Yuletide frenzy. It’s like the holiday’s more laid-back sibling, content to lounge in the background while Christmas takes the limelight. In this sense, Boxing Day is refreshingly honest, free from the heavy expectations of Christmas Day.

Yet, in a twist worthy of Charles Dickens, Boxing Day has also tiptoed into commercial frenzy. The irony is as thick as mince pie. 

Remember, this was once a day of rest. But retailers, in their ceaseless pursuit of profit, have commandeered and transformed it into yet another day of shopping. It’s as if they’ve taken the ‘box’ in Boxing Day quite literally and stuffed it with sale signs and clearance deals.

Wither that Boxing Day spirit

You’d think people would welcome a holiday enjoyed as a collective sigh of relief from the frenzied chaos of Christmas. Yet, they have wrapped this holiday in the garb of commercialism with as much gusto as a child ripping open their Christmas presents. 

It’s a day that now juggles two identities: the tranquil day of recovery and the frenetic rush for post-Christmas bargains. It also includes the busy activity of returns.

Alas, this is the modern Boxing Day – a curious blend of relaxation and retail, of restfulness and rampant consumerism. It seems the holiday itself can’t decide whether it wants to be a peaceful pause or a shopping spree. 

Perhaps that’s the charm of it – a day that encapsulates the contradictions of our times, a microcosm of our consumerist society wrapped up in a holiday bow.