# What is Boxing day?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 27, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108 "2025-12-27T21:39:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2025, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/41 "2025-12-29T17:33:40Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> That’s a good question, but it cannot have happened before 1871, when Germany first was united. Formerly, probably every region, duchy, kingdom or city had their own regulations, probably also depending if the region was nominally Catholic or Protestant.
Nitpick: That’s still true today; each and every state in Germany has its own holiday statutes. The only public holiday defined by federal law in Germany is Reunification Day on 3 October. All the others are defined in state law. It’s just that for 25 and 26 December, all sixteen state laws coincide.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2025, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/42 "2025-12-29T18:01:45Z")
Of course you’re right.
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### Author:  [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2025, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/43 "2025-12-29T18:04:07Z")
I’d know, I have family in Augsburg, the city with the highest number of public holidays in Germany - they get all the Bavarian holidays (which are already more than in any other state), plus a dedicated holiday on 8 August which exists only in that city.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2025, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/44 "2025-12-29T18:06:27Z")
Yeah, I heard that about Augsburg, they’re lucky folks. But in my home state of NRW, we also have a lot of holidays, because it’s quite evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants on the religious map (or what’s left of it), so we get a lot.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2025, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/45 "2025-12-29T22:39:07Z")
> [@markn\_1](#):
>
> But the idea of the “twelve days of Christmas” originated in Catholic doctrine.
Hence the English carol.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2025, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/46 "2025-12-30T00:59:16Z")
> [@Ancient\_Nerd](#):
>
> > [@Chronos](#):
> >
> > The “Twelve Days of Christmas” are the days from Christmas to the Feast of the Epiphany
>
> I’m picturing each day bigger than the one before until you have the drummers drumming as the lords leap on the dancing ladies with the grand finale yet to come.
“Numbah twelve day of Christmas the very last. And always save the best for last.”
Numbah twelve day of Christmas my tutu give to me
Twelve television…
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2026, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/47 "2026-01-01T12:19:53Z")
> [@hajario](#):
>
> The servants would get small presents in boxes and hence the name.
The word “box” is often used as a metaphor for cash. _“The English word cash originally meant ‘money box’, and later came to have a secondary meaning ‘money’. This secondary usage became the sole meaning in the 18th century.”_
The “box” given to servants would likely have been cash, possibly accompanied by a small gift.
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### Author:  [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2026, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/48 "2026-01-02T08:08:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> The “Twelve Days of Christmas” are the days from Christmas to the Feast of the Epiphany
TIL. I thought they were a sort of “Advent Calendar” leading up to Christmas, rather than than following on.
I wonder what the apocryphal “True Love” gave them on the actual Christmas day, he was clearly fairly wealthy and appeared to have a sideline in high-end slavery.
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### Author:  [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2026, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/49 "2026-01-02T09:32:42Z")
> [@scudsucker](#):
>
> he was clearly fairly wealthy and appeared to have a sideline in high-end slavery.
Seems unlikely that English lords would be slaves. He must have hired them.
The twelve days seem like the time in the Christmas story between the birth of Jesus and the arrival of the three kings with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. That would be pretty quick for international travel at the time.
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### Author:  [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2026, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/50 "2026-01-02T09:36:20Z")
> [@Ancient\_Nerd](#):
>
> Seems unlikely that English lords would be slaves. He must have hired them.
To be fair, modern era lords might do a bit of leaping, given a bit of a bribe.
They seem to do logic leaps in Parliament for free!
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2026, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/51 "2026-01-02T13:18:13Z")
> [@scudsucker](#):
>
> I wonder what the apocryphal “True Love” gave them on the actual Christmas day, he was clearly fairly wealthy and appeared to have a sideline in high-end slavery.
A partridge in a pear tree. Christmas Day is the first day of Christmas.
And the Gospels imply that it was years later that the Magi actually arrived; twelve days later is just when we celebrate it happening. Although, given that they were guided by prophetic astrology, we can’t say how far in advance it was when they set out.
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### Author:  [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2026, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/52 "2026-01-02T14:12:25Z")
> [@Schnitte](#):
>
> Occasionally it’s also still known under its traditional name, St Stephen’s Day, which is the Saint associated with the day in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. But yes, in secular terms the usual term is “second day of Christmas”.
thx, I was struggling with a memory: in Austria its also Stefáni-Tag (betonung auf a)
> [@Pardel-Lux](#):
>
> Catholic Saint who is celebrated on that day (usually more than one, there are more saints than days in the year in Catholic lore),
shall we call it Saintflation?
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### Author:  [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2026, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/53 "2026-01-02T17:19:03Z")
Francis canonised almost a thousand saints during his reign, and John Paul II almost 500. All other popes have double-digit numbers of formal canonisations at most. So yes, there’s certainly a long-term trend of saintflation. Now it’s reached the millennial generation - the most recently born saint, Carlo Acutis, was born in 1991 (and has, of course, had his own feast established: 12 October.)
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### Author:  [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2026, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/54 "2026-01-02T22:52:54Z")
Irish people (in this part of Ireland) never say “Boxing Day” - it’s a bit of a shibboleth here. British people say Boxing Day; Irish say Stephen’s Day. However “Boxing Day” is common in Northern Ireland among both communities, and even leaks across the border into County Donegal.
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### Author:  [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2026, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/55 "2026-03-23T00:49:38Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> I don’t understand. If the employer decides to shut down for two weeks, the employees have to use their leave?
as others have said, leave in the US is complicated. The usual case is the employer grants a day or two of extra holiday and encourages employees to take the rest in annual leave. I don’t think you can be "forced” to take annual leave, but you can be put on leave without pay. And many jobs (like the federal government) have use or lose policies where you can only carry over a certain number of unused leave hours. I have heard of people who were not able to use all their leave and lost some after some grace period. But I think that it is rare.
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### Author:  [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2026, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/56 "2026-03-23T02:41:40Z")
> [@rbroome](#):
>
> as others have said, leave in the US is complicated. The usual case is the employer grants a day or two of extra holiday and encourages employees to take the rest in annual leave.
At least for me, the shutdown is typically for the week between Christmas and New Years. There are few days of paid holiday and they encourage us to take the rest as vacation. Taking it unpaid is also an option but few people do that.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2026, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/57 "2026-03-24T10:27:38Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> That’s definitely true, but there are many official public holidays on originally religious (Christian) feasts that have become very secular for most people, but are upheld for tradition.
Christmas and Easter are originally Solar/ Lunar feasts, so perhaps it would be appropriate to call them “originally scientific” feasts.
From my own tradition, Christmas became a holiday in Scotland in 1958, and that’s a secular holiday, the religious tradition was specifically _not_ to celebrate the secular holiday celebrated in England and Wales.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2026, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/58 "2026-03-24T10:32:33Z")
> [@Ancient\_Nerd](#):
>
> At least for me, the shutdown is typically for the week between Christmas and New Years.
When I was working in a factory, shutdown for two weeks: one week of that was cleaning.
In melb.vic.au, construction industry shutdown is “January”. That will start at or just before Christmas, and end at some sort of flexible date: if you are a small contractor and behind in your work, you might start a week early.
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### Author:  [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2026, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/59 "2026-03-24T18:18:55Z")
> [@Melbourne](#):
>
> Christmas and Easter are originally Solar/ Lunar feasts
For Christmas this is obviously true (winter solstice), but it’s more complicated for Easter. It goes back to Passover, which is defined as 15 Nisan, and the Jewish calendar is lunar, so in that sense the date of Passover is defined by reference to the Moon; but I’m not sure there is anything astronomically remarkable about 15 Nisan. The Christian definition of Easter is more directly lunar (first Sunday after the first new Moon after spring equinox), but that’s a Christian reengineering that was grafted upon an already existing Jewish festival.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2026, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/60 "2026-03-24T21:15:27Z")
Easter is solar/lunar (the Jewish calendar is solar/lunar, too), but there’s nothing lunar about Christmas, and I have no idea how being either would make a holiday “scientific”.
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