I moved to Canada 21 years ago, and my wife and her family always celebrated their Christmas on Boxing Day, December 26. That would be when the gifts would be exchanged and when the family would get together.

I always found it very intriguing that there was a Boxing Day celebration here in Canada, because it wasn't something that I had ever experienced in the United States. 

According to information I have found, it wasn't until 1871 that Boxing Day did become an official holiday in the United Kingdom. So it makes sense that it wouldn't have been a tradition that would have been in the United States back before the Revolutionary War in 1776.

In Ontario, Boxing Day was much like Black Friday in the United States in that it was a major shopping day there in all of the shopping malls across the province.

Ten years ago, when we moved to New Brunswick, I was somewhat shocked to find that here in New Brunswick, Boxing Day is a provincial holiday, and therefore, everything is closed on Boxing Day. A few pharmacies are open along with convenience stores, but that's about it. I'm still somewhat intrigued with regard to why, not only in New Brunswick, but in many of the Maritime provinces, everything is closed and it's a provincial holiday.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there may have been some major department store back in the day that decided that they would get government to close everything because they wanted their employees to have an extra day of vacation.

So, it's not a day to strap on the gloves. And get in the ring, but rather it's a day to get together, share gifts, and in many of the provinces in Canada to have a major shopping time.

So, to look at the history of Boxing Day, it may go all the way back to Good King Wenceslas. The traditional Christmas Carol, Good King Wenceslas tells the story of one of the possible origins of Boxing Day. The events of this carol takes place on December 26th, which also happens to be the Feast of St. Stephen. In the song, a 10th century Duke of Bohemia sees a poor man and he decides to help this man. The Duke enlists the help of his page and gathering food, wine, and firewood, boxing it all up so that they can take it to the peasant. Then Wunchalus and his page brave a blizzard to deliver the boxes of goods.

Legend holds that Wunchalus actions started a tradition in which church goers would donate money during the advent. Then on the day after Christmas, the boxes of money would be broken open and distributed among the poor. After decades of carrying this out, December 26th became known as Boxing Day.

A second tradition is that it originates from the practice of the aristocracy giving their employees bonuses and presents on the day after Christmas. As the stories go, employees would take their boxes home and open them up with their families, hence Boxing Day. We may not know precisely how this holiday came to be, but we do know one thing.

The first recorded mention of Boxing Day comes from an 1830s version of the Oxford English Dictionary. The definition given is the first weekday after Christmas Day, observed as a holiday on which postmen, errand boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas box.

In other words, according to this definition, Boxing Day is a day to recognize All the service people in your life by leaving them Christmas presents.

Just because we closed the stores here in New Brunswick on Boxing Day, That doesn't mean that there still aren't a lot of sales, because what we have here is Boxing Week. In terms of significance, the holiday spirit of gift and almsgiving. It's generally faded away from memory. It's become a commercial holiday, and we take advantage of it just as much as they do in the United States on Black Friday.

Mark J Brewer, Host