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Boxing Day In Leicestershire

© Elizabeth Batt

SO!………. you've spent months planning, or at least it feels like months by the time you're done. It's Christmas Day, you eat, you drink, you eat some more and if you're lucky you don't spend half the day in the kitchen! Before you know it, it's done, over with and gone! All that work for one day of celebration? Not in the Leicester, nor the UK!

In England, Christmas is celebrated over two days, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. If you know anybody English, then you're bound to have heard about Boxing Day, and if you know anybody English who lives in America, then I'm sure you'll have heard their sighs of consternation at being deprived of another holiday.

Yep, that's right. Boxing Day in the UK is a holiday, therefore no work and plenty of play and time to fit in all those relatives that you couldn't get round to on the big day itself. Many of you might be thinking that it's just another day of work, more cooking, more entertaining, more cleaning up! There is that aspect to it I guess, but Boxing Day is more of a relaxation day. A lot of people just eat leftover Christmas dinner, then kick back, play games or watch the sports on TV.

However these sports do NOT include boxing! I found it quite amusing the other week when an American friend of mine told me that she thought we all sat around and watched boxing matches all day long. Well, we Brit's like boxing, but we don't spend one whole year, arranging fights especially for this day of celebration.

Boxing Day, pretty much like anything British has a history and a tradition all of it's own. There are different theories surrounding it's origins but essentially it boils down to two.
First we can thank the church. The day after Christmas was always the day that the "alms boxes" were opened and the money inside of them was distributed to the poor. Secondly, the Lords and Ladies of the manor would box up their leftover food, or sometimes gifts and distribute them the day after Christmas to tenants who lived and worked on their lands. Hence the term, "Boxing Day" and this is what it has become known as ever since!

I enjoyed celebrating our Christmas over two days. I got to spend time with all my family and if you were really fortunate you were invited out on both days, and never had to do much at all! There are certain joys to having a big family, and of course being British we don't just do the dinner thing. There's tea to contend with too!