Boxing Day
In 1963, ten top-flight football matches on Boxing Day produced 66 goals, and the day's odd name goes back to servants, church poor boxes and a feast for a saint.
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Quick Facts
- Date
- 26 December, the day after Christmas Day
- Other name
- St Stephen's Day, the saint's feast day in the Christian calendar
- Bank holiday
- Made a bank holiday in England, Wales and Ireland by the Bank Holidays Act 1871
- Name origin
- The 'box' is the Christmas box: money and gifts given to servants, tradespeople and the poor
- Famous carol
- 'Good King Wenceslas', written by John Mason Neale in 1853, is set on the Feast of Stephen
- Racing fixture
- The King George VI Chase at Kempton Park, first run on 26 February 1937 and a Boxing Day fixture since 1947
- Football record
- 26 December 1963: ten First Division games, 66 goals, including Fulham 10 Ipswich 1
- Classic swim
- The Tenby Boxing Day Swim in Pembrokeshire draws huge crowds of fancy-dress sea-dippers
The day the servants got their presents
Boxing Day has nothing to do with the sport. It is about boxes, and who got them. The usual story starts with Victorian households. Servants worked flat out on Christmas Day, so on the 26th they were given the day off, often with a box of leftovers, gifts or money to take home to their families. Tradespeople, such as the postman and the baker's boy, called round for their own 'Christmas box' to thank them for a year's service. A second thread runs through the churches. Alms boxes put out in the weeks before Christmas were opened on the day after, and the contents handed to the poor. Both versions give the same idea: the 26th is the day you look after the people who looked after you. The date also falls on St Stephen's Day, the saint's feast day. That is why 'Good King Wenceslas' looks out 'on the Feast of Stephen', in the carol John Mason Neale wrote in 1853.
How Boxing Day became a bank holiday
The Bank Holidays Act 1871 made the day a bank holiday in England, Wales and Ireland, giving it official standing beside Christmas Day. Today it is marked as a public holiday across the whole UK, Northern Ireland included. Bank-holiday status does not give every worker a automatic right to the day off; that depends on their employment arrangements, which is why shops, transport and hospitals keep running. When Christmas or Boxing Day falls on a weekend, the holiday is moved to a weekday, which is why some years you get a substitute Monday or Tuesday.
Sixty-six goals in one afternoon
For generations, the 26th has been football's busiest day. Fans who spent Christmas Day with family treated an afternoon at the match as part of the festive routine. The most outrageous Boxing Day ever came in 1963. Ten First Division matches produced 66 goals. Fulham beat Ipswich Town 10-1, and Blackburn Rovers beat West Ham United 8-2. Defenders everywhere were presumably still full of turkey. The tradition remains firmly in place. The Premier League and the football league pyramid below it routinely keep the Boxing Day card going, and plenty of people in the stands are wearing a new scarf from the day before.
Horses, hunts and pantomime
At Kempton Park, the King George VI Chase is the big Boxing Day race, a three-mile steeplechase that treats the day as a proper test of jump racing's best horses. It was first run on 26 February 1937 and moved to Boxing Day when it resumed after the Second World War in 1947. Hunting once dominated the day. Boxing Day meets drew crowds of spectators in market squares and village greens. After the Hunting Act 2004 banned hunting wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales, hunts turned to trail hunting, following a laid scent. The meets still happen and still divide opinion. Scotland has its own separate law on the subject. Indoors, the pantomime tradition runs hard. Many theatres open their pantomime on or around Boxing Day, and the audience's cry of 'He's behind you!' is as much a part of the season as sprouts.
Cold water and sales
Some people spend the morning walking off Christmas dinner. Others go in the sea. At Tenby in Pembrokeshire, the Boxing Day Swim sends hundreds of people into the cold water of the Bristol Channel, often in fancy dress, in aid of charity, while thousands watch from the beach. Similar dips take place in seaside towns up and down the coast. Then there is shopping. The Boxing Day sales are a British institution, with shoppers queuing in the dark outside department stores for bargains. In recent years a lot of the action has moved online, and sales often begin before the 26th even arrives. And then there are the leftovers. Cold turkey, bubble and squeak and pickles are practically the day's official menu, and plenty of families insist the second-day meal is better than the first.
The same day, a different holiday overseas
The tradition spread with the British Empire. Australia, Canada and New Zealand all keep Boxing Day. In Melbourne, the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground is one of the biggest dates in the cricket calendar, with crowds numbered in the tens of thousands. In Ireland the day goes by St Stephen's Day, and has its own customs, including the Wren Boys, who go door to door in costume. It is a reminder that the 26th has more than one tradition attached to it.
Notable people
- John Mason Neale
- Saint Stephen
- Wenceslas I, Duke of Bohemia
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