Boxing Day is a bank holiday or a public holiday in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Greenland, New Zealand, Hong Kong and most countries in the Commonwealth of Nations with a mainly Christian population. In South Africa, Boxing Day is known as the Day of Goodwill. In Canada, Boxing Day is a statutory holiday for federal government employees. It’s also a statutory holiday in Ontario but not in Quebec. In New Brunswick, it’s just a holiday under the Days of Rest Act. Still, many but not all employers across the country observe Boxing Day as a paid day off.

In fact, all or most of the countries that used to be part of the British Empire celebrate Boxing Day with the exception of the United States? It’s believed that when the U.S. rebelled against the British, drafters of the U.S. constitution decided to abandon certain British traditions and Boxing Day was one of them. The removal of 'Boxing day' was therefore an expression of independence from British oppression.

There seems to be two theories on the origin of Boxing Day and why it is celebrated. The first is that centuries ago, on the day after Christmas, members of the British merchant class would give boxes containing food and fruit, clothing, and/or money to trades people and servants. The gifts were an expression of gratitude much like when people receive bonuses, from their employer, for a job well done. These gifts, given in boxes, gave the holiday its name, "Boxing Day".

The second thought is that Boxing Day comes from the tradition of opening the alms boxes placed in churches over the Christmas season. The contents were distributed amongst the poor, by the clergy, the day after Christmas.
For those who celebrate Boxing Day, it is usually spent with family and friends with lots of food and wine and the sharing of friendship and love. Government buildings and small businesses are closed but the malls are open and filled with people exchanging gifts or buying reduced priced Christmas gifts, cards, decorations and flat screen TVs.

Boxing Day is not a holiday for those in the retail business. In fact, Boxing Day is similar to Black Friday, celebrated in the United States the day after Thanksgiving. According to Visa (the credit card folks), Boxing Day 2005 was the single largest economic transaction day ever in the history of Canadian commerce.

Boxing Day has long been associated with sports but not with the ‘sport’ of boxing. In England, it was a sporting tradition for the rich to go fox-hunting on Boxing Day but hunting with dogs is now outlawed in both England and Wales. However, many hugely popular sporting events still occur on Boxing Day such as cricket matches, yacht races, horse races, football matches and hockey tournaments.

Another popular Boxing Day activity is wading or swimming in the frigid winter waters along the British coastline. Participants wear formal clothing and money is collected and distributed to local charities. The most famous Boxing Day Dips occur in Sunderland, England. In recent years, this has also become a tradition along the Halifax shoreline but without the formal clothing.

From a sporting perspective, Boxing Day has many subtexts for Canadians whether it be winter skiing, snowmobiling or the start of the International Ice Hockey Federation’s World Junior Hockey Tournament. This year’s World Junior kicks off as usual on December 26th in Regina and Saskatoon. Two of its team-members are boys from New Brunswick including team Captain Patrice Cormier from Cap Pele.

Boxing Day is also famous for disaster. In 2004 the Indian Ocean earthquake, also known as the Boxing Day Tsunami happened on December 26th. It is considered one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. Due to a 9.3 magnitude earthquake (the second strongest earthquake ever recorded) and lasting between 8-10 minutes (the longest duration of faulting in history), it created a mega tsunami and triggered numerous other smaller earthquakes, one as far away as Alaska. The earthquake caused a significant vibration across the entire planet and caused massive destruction in over 15 different countries and fatalities among dozens of nationalities have been reported as a result of the mega disaster.

The Earthquake took about 230,000 lives in total and is considered the second deadliest earthquake in recorded history.

There was another tragedy this week, a few days before Boxing Day. A young work colleague of mine will be missing this year’s holiday. She died in her sleep last Sunday, most likely from an aneurysm. A week ago yesterday, she left the office apparently in good health. No one suspected she had a problem. No one suspected she would miss Christmas. We take life as a given. We do so at our own peril.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com