Boxing Day

We're visiting relatives in Canada for the holidays, and today, of course, is Boxing Day. If you follow the Catholic calendar, you may also know that it's St. Stephen's Day, in honor of the first Christian martyr, but I suspect the Boxing Day alias is better known. As far as anyone seems to know, it was an old English holiday, and it's now officially recognized in various parts of the former British empire--the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and possibly more.

Inevitably, whenever the subject of Boxing Day comes up, the question arises of where it got its name. The truth is, no one quite knows for sure. There are a few guesses, but that's all they are. Even the Boxing Day page on the Canadian government's heritage site is inconclusive:

The day after Christmas, the Feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, is better known as Boxing Day. The term may come from the opening of church poor boxes that day; maybe from the earthenware boxes with which boy apprentices collected money at the doors of their masters' clients.

Yes, the best they can do is the term may come from. Snopes, the site that sets us straight on rumors and urban legends, declares that the day is not named for the action of clearing away all the Christmas boxes. They pass along a few unconfirmed origins for the name, most of which have something to do with the act of giving to those more unfortunate than you after Christmas. Though we can't conclusively confirm how the day's observance and name came to be, that's probably not a bad concept for us to hang onto while the Christmas season lingers.