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[arioch36]

How do you celebrate "Boxing Day" in your country?

I'm American, before I came to China, I never even heard of Boxing Day. In fact, at my first school, of the six non Americans, only two knew what boxing day was. The Canadian said Boxing Day was a sort of excuse day..it's the day after christmas so i don't have to do anything. In America, the day after Christmas could be called "exchange and bargain day" Everyone goes to the store and exchange their gifts, or look for discounts on Christmas items.

So I'm reading the intensive reading english book my students have.
The book has a whole chapter on Christmas, and never mentions the birth of Jesus Christ. Instead talks a lot about Boxing day, and then sums it up by saying that most people know don't know what it is...???Then why spend the Christmas Chapter on it?
So my students want to know about boxing day. (You can easily tell if a christian, or if someone who hates christ, wrote the book, by seeing what they write about Christmas and Easter. I looked forward, and in this book Easter is about eating Chocolate rabbits, and Easter egghunts..) they think Boxing Day must be important if the book talked about this, and not jesus. Some help here? Is it strictly a British Commonwealth upperclass thing? What is it?


The author also talks about some weird kind of "Pantomine" play? I was in England, and never saw one. Can anyone give me a clue about this?

[Gordon]

In Canada, Boxing day is the biggest shopping day of the year, electronic stores especially. Some losers stay up all night on Christmas to be at the front of the line when the store opens to get one of the doorcrasher specials. For example, a 45 inch flat screen TV for $300. Some people go really crazy this day and the malls are just swamped.

[khmerhit]

Dear Arioch36,

Boxing day is the day the seropis shopping begins! (at least in Canada and on the UK-- surely you have the same phenom in the US?!?)

Here is some background:

Boxing Day is the day after Christmas. It's a holiday in the United Kingdom, Canada, and many other Commonwealth nations. The actual origin of this holiday isn't clear, and there are two good explanations. Here are both so you can take your pick...During the Middle Ages, the churches opened their "alms" boxes the day after Christmas. This is where people left gifts of money for the poor. When the money was handled out to the people in the neighborhood, they called it "Boxing Day".

The second explanation moves to 19th century England during the reign of Queen Victoria. Servants had to work on Christmas to make the holiday run smoothly, but they could leave on December 26th to visit their families. When they left, their employers gave each servant a box of gifts and bonuses.

Today, Boxing Day is generally spent with family and friends, watching sports or donating time to help the needy.
http://home4christmas.com/ctrad1.html
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Now, a pantomime is a live stage play in the UK, mounted at Christmastime, and supposed to be (and it usually is) humourous. Its for the kids, their parents take them. Ive never been to one myself but they are a big item at Xmas in Britain, and lots of name TV actors take time out of their schedule to act in them-- lots of no-names too. Theres a fair amount of humour, sexual innuendo and a certain amount of male cross-dressing, transvestism being an accepted part of English popular culture. It's an imported thing in Canada-- we have it in places here too, tho not as much. Uptight New Englanders would never have approved of it, which is probably why you havent heard about panto in the US!

I'm not really religious, but I agree with you that the holiday we call CHRISTmas could do with less dollars and more incense.

Anyway --Merry Christmas to you !!
all tthe grooviest in china
kh