“So this Boxing Day and what have you done?” as John Lennon didn’t quite put it. Not a lot, as it turns out. We all know what Christmas Day is all about, whether as a Christian it’s the birth of the Baby Jesus or for the rest of us previous time spent with loved-ones. Boxing Day seems to be a bit something and nothing, which is exactly what it is.
As with most things about Christmas, Boxing Day comes from the Victorian Age and its origins make me cringe. To quote the BBC website: “The name comes from a time during Queen Victoria’s reign when the rich used to box up gifts to give to the poor.” And: “Boxing Day was traditionally a day off for servants – a day when they received a special Christmas box from their masters. The servants would also go home on Boxing Day to give Christmas boxes to their families.” Thank God we don’t live in times like that anymore, except that in many ways we do.
These days it’s not just the rich who “box up gifts to give to the poor“. I’m not sure everyone who is rich gives a toss about the poor nowadays so those of us from the working and middle classes have stepped up instead. We have done it through the various community initiatives that come to light in the festive season and through food banks who help people for the rest of the year.
As for masters and servants, it’s not all Downton Abbey or Upstairs, Downstairs (one for the teenagers, there) in the 21st century but in terms of inequality and basic collective rights that have been stripped away from workers since the Thatcher era, the class system is still very much at work. So, what’s Boxing Day for today?
I came up with one answer: football. After a long day of excess, what better thing to do than attend a professional football match in sub-zero temperatures? These days, my answer to that question is anything, but there was a time when Boxing Day meant only football. Apart from football, what is there to do?
- Posh people ride horses to watch their dogs catch and then rip apart terrified foxes because it’s such fun.
- Turkey sandwiches
- Shopping
- Er…
- That’s it
It’s not much, is it? Looking at it that way, Boxing Day is more a nothing and nothing day, rather than a something and nothing day.
It’s also about cleaning and tidying up after the gluttony and carnage from the day before. Not quite as interesting as the birth of baby Jesus, being born in a stable because no one at the inn could be arsed to find somewhere warm and comfortable to be born. Actually, that sounds not unlike the world we live in today. “We don’t want your lot around here.” “But I’m the son of God.” “Yeah, they all say that. Now fuck off to the nearest stable.”
I’m definitely near the glad it’s all over part now. I just want the tedium of normality to resume, preferably sooner rather than later. It – Christmas Day – was wonderful while it lasted. But Boxing Day is a worn out extension of The Big Day.
Still, we’ve only got the misery of New Year’s Eve to endure and Jools Holland’s abysmal hootenanny to avoid. Things can only get better, can’t they?
