Happy Boxing Day!

It’s December 26th, and for most of us that means that we have made it through Chanukah and Christmas. We can thaw out from the extremely cold weekend and think ahead to celebrating the new year. But did you know that for many people around the world, December 26th is a holiday called Boxing Day? And it is very likely that some of our ancestors were active participants in that extra day of giving and receiving. The modern celebration of Boxing Day only began during the 1830s when Queen Victoria reigned in Great Britain, but the origin of the holiday goes much further back in time.

There are several theories of how Boxing Day began, one of which starts in the early days of Christianity with St. Stephen, who was one of seven men in the New Testament tasked with seeing that alms were distributed fairly to those who needed them. Stephen, however, was stoned to death for taking people to task for their lack of generosity. His martyrdom as an advocate for the poor is the likely reason that Boxing Day emerged as a day of giving. During the Advent season, those days before Christmas, churches placed out alms boxes so that parishioners could donate to those less fortunate. In medieval Europe when the calendar was filled with days honoring saints, St. Stephen’s Day, December 26th, became the day that the alms money was distributed to the poor.  (Photo to the right is an alms box from a church in Norfolk, England, c. 1500) 

You undoubtedly have heard the Christmas carol, “Good King Wenceslas.” He was a young duke in Bohemia (today's Czech Republic) in the early tenth century who was martyred after his brother had him murdered. In the song, we find Wenceslas discovering a poor man out in a snowstorm gathering wood “on the Feast of Stephen.” Taking pity on the ragged peasant, Wenceslas gathered up food, wine, and pine logs and brought his gifts to the man’s door. The song ends with the reminder that “Ye who now will bless the poor Shall yourselves find blessing.”

As England and the countries in her commonwealth became more divided by a rigid class structure, Christmas usually meant that poor people had to work extra hard to accommodate the needs of the wealthy and seldom, if ever, got the day off or had money to purchase gifts for their families. Boxing Day in the seventeenth century seems to have evolved from the alms boxes that were in churches, into boxes placed in locations where people could tip shoemakers, lamplighters, chimney sweeps, and others who worked endlessly for very low wages. By the nineteenth century, it had become a day when well-to-do aristocrats handed out holiday gifts, money, food, and drink to their employees. These gifts were usually gift-wrapped in boxes. 

In Ireland, December 26th came to be called “The Day of the Wren,” and it has a darker history. Originally, the day involved groups of young men who went hunting for a tiny wren to kill. Once dead, the little bird was placed in a box of greenery and paraded through town. The boys wore masks, sang, and played drums while going from house to house asking for money for the bird’s funeral. Those who balked at paying were threatened with having the bird buried in their yards, which, to the superstitious country folk, was the height of bad luck. By the nineteenth century, however, this Boxing Day (probably named for the box holding the wren or the money) had become just an excuse for carousing and taking money from those who could not really afford to be giving it away. Luckily, this is no longer done in Ireland!

Boxing Day today is celebrated in all the countries of the United Kingdom, former colonies, and in some other places, like the Netherlands and Poland, where it is simply called “Second Christmas Day.” Like many modern holidays, it has become a day for eating, shopping the post-holiday sales, and watching sports on television. Although we don’t formally acknowledge Boxing Day in the U.S., it was probably a tradition our ancestors brought with them when they came here. Some were likely wealthy enough to be making donations and sharing what they had, while others would have benefited from receiving those Boxing Day gifts.

Learn more at . . .

“Boxing Day, Explained,” by Tanya Pai, Vox Media, 21 December 2022, https://www.vox.com/22193472/boxing-day-explained-december-26

“The Day of the Wren: The Question of Boxing Day,” the Ultimate History Project, undated article, https://ultimatehistoryproject.com/boxing-day.html

“’Good Kind Wenceslas’: What are the Lyrics and Real Story Behind the Christmas Carol?” by Elizabeth Davis, Classic FM, Discover Music, 20 December 2022 https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/real-story-good-king-wenceslas-carol/

Coming next week: January 2023 St. Louis Genealogical Society meetings and classes!

And from all of us at StLGS . . .