Today’s Word of the Day is actually a two-word phrase, Boxing Day. If you are a fan of English football, you know that Boxing Day is the day after Christmas, and that it signals a lot of premiership football. Unlike the NBA and the NFL, the EPL takes Christmas Day off, but there are always matches the day after.

But where does the phrase “Boxing Day” come from?

Counter to what you might be thinking, Boxing Day has nothing to do with the sport of boxing. But historians and linguists disagree about its etymology. In fact, they can’t even seem to agree upon when the phrase first shows up.

According to www.etymonline.com, the phrase first appears in 1809, meaning the first weekday after Christmas “on which by an English custom postmen, employees, and others can expect to receive a Christmas present; originally in reference to the custom of distributing the contents of the Christmas box, which had been placed in the church for charity collections…. The custom is older than the phrase.

But according to www.nationaltoday.com, the phrase does not appear until 1833: “When Christmas Day is over, the celebration continues on Boxing Day on December 26. The name was first used in 1833, but the exact origin has never been determined.” Of course, it is impossible to know when the name was “first used”; we can only determine the first extant written record. It is most likely that people were calling the day “Boxing Day” before it was first written down.

One theory as to the origins of Boxing Day is that English churches would keep an alms box at the back of the church, and people would put money into the box in the period leading up to Christmas Day. Then, on the day after Christmas, or the second day of Christmas tide (remember that there are 12 days to Christmas, starting on December 25 and ending on January 6, Epiphany), the clergy would open the alms box and distribute the money to the poor.

The charitable giving is also connected to the fact that December 26 is Saint Stephen’s Day. St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr, according to the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. In addition, though, according to Acts 6, when the early Christian community decided to appoint men to handle the distribution of food to the widows, Stephen was the first person mentioned.

Another theory is that the term refers to boxing up gifts that the English upper class would give to their servants and employees. NationalToday says this:

The entire British class system worked to make Christmas Day a big deal for wealthy elites. They splurged on Christmas dinners of geese, turkey, and other fowl cooked by kitchen staff. Household servants worked hard making all the holiday preparations during the years well before the conveniences and technological advances of the Industrial Revolution. Messenger boys regularly ran errands and postmen delivered mail and packages year-round.

Boxing Day, on December 26, gave the wealthy a chance to repay their servants and tradespeople with paid time off and small gift boxes filled with trinkets or coins as a show of appreciation for their service during the holidays and throughout the year. Servants and tradespeople also prepared gift boxes for their own families, too.

Of course, it is, I think, easy to be generous when you are rich. But the British aristocracy does not have to treat the servant class decently, so I guess we should be thankful for any generous treatment.

But today, at least in most of the countries that recognize, officially or unofficially, Boxing Day as a holiday, it has become a big shopping day. And not just shopping, but returning gifts as well. In some places Boxing Day rivals the USA’s Black Friday.

Whether you shop or give gifts or return gifts on Boxing Day, or whether you watch English football or American football on Boxing Day, the only think I would encourage you not to do is hit somebody. That would be the wrong kind of boxing. Today’s image comes from tentaran.com. And as the image says, Happy Boxing Day.