Why 26 december is called as boxing day?

Answer 1

In Canada, Boxing Day is observed as a holiday, except for those in the retail business. Boxing Day and the days immediately following are when many retail stores sell their Christmas and retired model products by holding clearance sales. Some shoppers will line up for hours at night (sometimes before midnight and after midnight on December 26) for retailers to open their doors. Retailers often open their stores earlier than usual, such as 6 or 7 am. Some retail companies internally refer to the sales week after Christmas as the "thirteenth month." (See Boxing Week.) It is similar to Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) in the United States. Boxing Day 2005 was the single largest economic transaction day ever in the history of Canadian commerce (according to Visa). Individual big box stores can even gross over $1,000,000(CAN) on one single boxing day.

Answer 2

Because in olden times, English barons and lords would give a big box of practical goods (like food, blankets, tools etc) to their servants on the day after Christmas. No doubt some of this included the stuff they didn't want from the day before...

With all of those servants carrying boxes around, the day became known as boxing day.

Answer 3

There is great dispute over the true origins of Boxing Day. The more common stories include:

In feudal times, Christmas was a reason for a gathering of extended families. All the serfs would gather their families in the manor of their lord, which made it easier for the lord of the estate to hand out annual stipends to the serfs. After all the Christmas parties on December 26th, the lord of the estate would give practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land. Each family would get a box full of such goods the day after Christmas. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obliged to supply these goods. Because of the boxes being given out, the day was called Boxing Day.

In Britain many years ago, it was common practice for the servants to carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day's work on the day after Christmas. Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts. This can be compared with the modern day concept of Christmas bonuses. The servants carried boxes for the coins, hence the name Boxing Day.

In churches, it was traditional to open the church's donation box on Christmas Day, and the money in the donation box was to be distributed to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day. In this case, the "box" in "Boxing Day" comes from that one gigantic lockbox in which the donations were left.

In Britain because many servants had to work for their employers on Christmas Day they would instead open their presents (i.e., boxes) the next day, which therefore became known as Boxing Day.

Boxing Day was the day when the wren, the king of birds was captured and put in a box and introduced to each household in the village when he would be asked for a successful year and a good harvest. See Frazer's Golden Bough.

Evidence can also be found in Wassail songs such as:
Where are you going ? said Milder to Malder,
Oh where are you going ? said Fessel to Foe,
I'm going to hunt the cutty wren said Milder to Malder,
I'm going to hunt the cutty wren said John the Rednose.
And what will you do wi' it ? said Milder to Malder,
And what will you do wi' it ? said Fessel to Foe,
I'll put it in a box said Milder to Malder,
I'll put it in a box said John the Rednose.
etc.

Answer 4

The name given to the December 26th public holiday, which was synonymous with the boxing and exchanging of gifts that would normally occur on this day by the slaves.

Answer 5

because it is 26 december

Answer 6

I think because, we are "boxing" up the gifts we said " We LOVE it" to and take it back to the store. or we are "boxing" over the after christmas sale items we really wanted for ourselves, at a discounted price. I really don't know!

Answer 7

Because you have to clean up all the boxes from the presents under the tree.

Answer 8

Maybe that's when they throw away all the boxes from Christmas! LOL

Answer 9

i think it's an english custom. where the family of the house and the servants change places for the day. kind of a way to not forget to treat others well.

Answer 10

Log on to www.wikipedia.org and look up boxing day. You should find the answer there.