Boxing Day
I love traveling. I love to learn new thing about many things but one of the things I found it interesting to learn is cultural difference. Each country has its tradition,custom, cerebration and it is very interesting to learn all about them.
In previous entry titled "Christmas around the world", I have written how we cerebrate Christmas differently in US and in Japan. In England, they too have Christmas day, but also have Boxing day in December.
Boxing day is one of the bank holiday (You can read more on Bank Holiday in previous entry "Bank Holiday".Please click here.), and according to wikipedia,it is also knows as "Day of Goodwill" in South Africa and other countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand,Hong Kong,South Africa etc have Boxing day. And in England,it is also a very big shopping holiday. Stores open around 5am and retailers sell products with great discount. (To read wikipedia article,please click here.)
When you just hear the word "Boxing",I am sure some of you would imagine boxing competition but,nothing to do with it. Boxing day usually fall on 26th of December,and if 26th of December falls on Saturday,Sunday, then Boxing day is next weekday.
According to factmonster website, the tradition has started in England in middle ages,. And it seems there are some theories how it started.
Some historians say that the Boxing day has started to give next day day off to servants who were required to work on Christmas day at the time. Servants pack their bag to go back to families to spend quality time with them and when they leave, employers gave them gift boxes.
Other theory is that there were boxes that placed in church and the boxes had coins for the poor. The boxes were open on 26th of December and coins were distributed to those.
Today,this tradition is expanded and still going on. People thank service workers such as mailman, doorman, porters etc who helped them and give gift to them. (To read full story,please click here.)
I think this is great tradition to show appreciation to those who help us.
In previous entry titled "Christmas around the world", I have written how we cerebrate Christmas differently in US and in Japan. In England, they too have Christmas day, but also have Boxing day in December.
Boxing day is one of the bank holiday (You can read more on Bank Holiday in previous entry "Bank Holiday".Please click here.), and according to wikipedia,it is also knows as "Day of Goodwill" in South Africa and other countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand,Hong Kong,South Africa etc have Boxing day. And in England,it is also a very big shopping holiday. Stores open around 5am and retailers sell products with great discount. (To read wikipedia article,please click here.)
When you just hear the word "Boxing",I am sure some of you would imagine boxing competition but,nothing to do with it. Boxing day usually fall on 26th of December,and if 26th of December falls on Saturday,Sunday, then Boxing day is next weekday.
According to factmonster website, the tradition has started in England in middle ages,. And it seems there are some theories how it started.
Some historians say that the Boxing day has started to give next day day off to servants who were required to work on Christmas day at the time. Servants pack their bag to go back to families to spend quality time with them and when they leave, employers gave them gift boxes.
Other theory is that there were boxes that placed in church and the boxes had coins for the poor. The boxes were open on 26th of December and coins were distributed to those.
Today,this tradition is expanded and still going on. People thank service workers such as mailman, doorman, porters etc who helped them and give gift to them. (To read full story,please click here.)
I think this is great tradition to show appreciation to those who help us.
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