Boxing Day 2022 is a public holiday celebrated on December 26 in Great Britain and several other Commonwealth countries, most notably Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Traditionally, gifts were given to trades people, servants, and the less fortunate on this day. By the turn of the 21st century, it had evolved into a day that was commonly linked with going shopping and attending sporting events. The day that is traditionally known as Boxing Day occurs on Monday, December 26th, 2022.
The opening of alms boxes, which had been placed in churches for the purpose of collecting gifts to benefit the poor, is one theory that has been put forth to explain where the name came from; however, other theories have also been put forward to explain its origin.
On the other hand, there are many who believe that it originated from the gift boxes that were distributed to workers on the day after Christmas. This hypothesis proposes that in order to compensate servants for the effort they did on Christmas Day to ensure the success of their employers’ celebrations, their employers gave them the day after Christmas off to celebrate the holiday on their own terms.
The practice of handing out incentives to workers in the service industry has been maintained, but these days the payments are typically made before Christmas Day rather than after it.
When December 26 comes on a Saturday or Sunday, the following Monday is designated as the official public holiday. St. Stephen, the patron saint of horses, celebrates his feast day on December 26 (also known as St. Stephen’s Day), which is also known as Boxing Day.
Boxing Day has become a day for many sporting events, such as foxhunting, rugby, and horse racing. Following the passage of laws in England and Wales in 2005 that largely outlawed the use of hounds in foxhunts, traditional foxhunting underwent significant changes as a result. The English in the American colonies did not observe the holiday in the same way that we do now.
