What is that unexplainable red numbered day after Christmas on your calendar? Why—it’s Boxing Day.
To Bill Jaynes, owner of La Mesa’s All Things Bright and British shop, Boxing Day was an honored tradition to his English heritage family as he was growing up.
What is Boxing Day? To Americans, as stated already, it is the red numbered day on their work and home calendars after Christmas, observed December 26, that every year someone says, “What’s Boxing Day?” It’s an English holiday or bank holiday.
What is that unexplainable red numbered day after Christmas on your calendar? Why—it’s Boxing Day.
To Bill Jaynes, owner of La Mesa’s All Things Bright and British shop, Boxing Day was an honored tradition to his English heritage family as he was growing up.
What is Boxing Day? To Americans, as stated already, it is the red numbered day on their work and home calendars after Christmas, observed December 26, that every year someone says, “What’s Boxing Day?” It’s an English holiday or bank holiday.
“The day after Christmas the well-to-do families would box up the leftovers and give them to poor people around town,” according to Jaynes. “It is an official holiday and observed by the commonwealth, Canada and Australia.” Many other countries have adopted what they call a “goodwill day” practice and/or do slight variations of this English tradition.
“We didn’t have a lot of left-overs” continued Jaynes “but we would box up the leftovers and give them to the rest of the family. We might buy more canned merchandise as well.”
Right cross swings didn’t come into play for the English (hopefully) on Boxing Day but the boxes used, claimed Jaynes, would be regular corrugated boxes from shipped products to the use of left-over gift boxes.
Regretfully the phrase Boxing Day is also attached to the word tsunami; as in the Boxing Day tsunami that happened in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004.
The Republic of Malawi in South Africa, having delisted Boxing Day previously, has restored the holiday to Malawi this year under Joyce Banda’s administration.
Other meanings to the English, according to Jaynes, are big, deep sales — as in the English’s version of “Black Friday.” The English do not observe Thanksgiving so there is no “Black Friday.” Boxing Day could be used to describe “boxing up the purchases” in this use of the phrase.
While it may be more of an “elbow day” in America with elbows flying getting to the sale items; the shopping frenzies in England on Boxing Day have been largely unreported here.
Boxing Day is also a day where having a Christmas cake, brandied butter and other, lighter fare than offered on Christmas, are almost obligatory on a table for family and guests who pop in the day after Christmas in England.
Whatever nuances of difference that surface in the observance of Boxing Day around the world, All Things Bright and British will be able to explain and sell you boxes for your own personal Boxing Day.
To see what Jaynes’ store offers in the line of boxes of foods and products visit the store or reference www.facebook.com/AllThingsBrightandBritish.
