History of Boxing Day and the Feast of St. Stephen
Image: Wikimedia
HISTORY OF BOXING DAY
While unfamiliar to many Americans, Boxing Day is a well-known holiday among the countries of the former British Commonwealth. It is celebrated on December 26 as a public holiday in the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, and even Massachusetts. However, it’s not a public holiday in the US.
Though some believe it has to do with the need to dispose of empty boxes on the day after Christmas, it has nothing to do with that, nor does it have anything to do with pugilistic fisticuffs. It is the second day of Christmastide, and some European countries celebrate it as “Second Christmas Day,” but there’s more.
What does Boxing Day have to do with Good King Wenceslaus and the Feast of Stephen?
St. Stephen’s Day
St. Stephen, by Giotto di Bondone. Image: Wikimedia
In Britain, Boxing Day is also known as the Christian feast day of St. Stephen’s Day. Stephen, a man:
“possessing great wisdom and full of the Spirit,”
was the first Christian martyr, as recorded in Chapter 7 of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles in the Bible.
He was one of the first deacons, or “ministers,” of the early church, serving at the table to the Hellenistic (non-Jewish, or Greek-speaking) widows of the church who were being neglected.
Good King Wenceslaus, or Vaclav the Good
About 800 years ago in the UK, Boxing Day was when gifts were given to the service classes. The popular 1847 Christmas carol, “Good King Wenceslaus,” about a Bohemian (now the Czech Republic) king back in the 10th century, tells of giving gifts to a poor peasant on “The Feast of Stephen.”
St. Wenceslaus, Prague. Image: Wikimedia
Wenceslaus I, or Vaclav the Good, was Duke of Bohemia, martyred by his younger brother. Due to his virtue, he was posthumously declared King and patron saint of the Czech state.
The folk history of this holiday from the Middle Ages tells how boxes of food or fruit were given by the more materially blessed to their servants the day after Christmas, as these servants would attend to their masters on Christmas Day.
You’ve no doubt heard the song:
Good King Wenceslaus looked out
On the Feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even…Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye, who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing.
The Lord of the Manor might present various goods or cash in boxes to members of the extended household. The term “Christmas box” is traced to the 17th century. Alternatively, the term is understood to be the alms-boxes in some churches that were opened during this season following Christmas Day.
Boxing Day
In some countries of the British Commonwealth in modern times, Boxing Day is a bank holiday and a day of post-Christmas shopping sales, sometimes compared to the American Black Friday.
It is also an opportunity for sporting championship events, like:
- Horse racing
- Fox hunting
- Ice hockey
- English Channel “Polar Bear Plunge”
- British Premier League football (soccer) fixtures
- British theatre Christmas plays, known as “Pantomimes”
– but not usually pugilistic fisticuffs (boxing).
Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com
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