# 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:** 8
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2026, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/61 "2026-03-25T00:47:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> but there’s nothing lunar about Christmas, and I have no idea how being either would make a holiday “scientific”.
When they set the date of Christmas, it was put on the nominal Roman winter soltice. I don’t think we know exactly when that happened, but by then the actual solstice had almost certainly drifted earlier by a day or two, if not more. Is being on the nominal solstice “scientific”? I have my doubts.
---
### Author:  [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/62 "2026-03-28T11:44:25Z")
December 26th is not a public holiday in Scotland, where January 2nd is taken instead.
In reading the diary of a shipping clerk in Glasgow a century ago, it’s noticeable that he goes to work on Christmas Day, though he finishes early.
---
### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2026, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/63 "2026-03-28T14:44:02Z")
Not uncommon until at least the 1950s. My father put in a shift (working on the information and advice desk of the Automobile Association) on Christmas Day at least once then - and public transport was operating then too.
---
### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2026, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/64 "2026-04-03T00:44:58Z")
Christmas day became a public holiday in Scotland in 1958. Before that, there was opposition from the traditional church, of the same sort seen here on SDMB: “It’s not _my_ religious holiday, so I object to having a secular holiday on that day”
---
### Author:  [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2026, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/65 "2026-04-03T10:24:26Z")
Christmas was seen as an “English thing”, which no true Scotsman should be doing.
---
### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2026, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/66 "2026-05-16T19:53:11Z")
> [@bob\_2](#):
>
> _“The English word cash originally meant ‘money box’, and later came to have a secondary meaning ‘money’.”_
Related, perhaps, to _cache_?
---
### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2026, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/67 "2026-05-16T19:57:42Z")
Related, perhaps, to _cache_ ?
Not as far as I can see:
From: etymonline
_\> ## cash(n.)_
\*\> \*
_\> 1590s, “money box;” also “money in hand, coin,” from French caisse “money box” (16c.), from Provençal caissa or Italian cassa, from Latin capsa “box” (see [case](https://www.etymonline.com/word/case#etymonline_v_5433) (n.2)); originally the money box, but by 18c. the secondary sense of the money in it became sole meaning._
\*\> \*
_\> Like many financial terms in English (bankrupt, etc.), it has an Italian heritage. Not related to (but influencing the form of) the colonial British cash “Indian monetary system, Chinese coin, etc.,” which is from Tamil kasu, Sanskrit karsha, Sinhalese kasi._
---
### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2026, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108/68 "2026-05-16T21:49:28Z")
“Cache” is from French _cacher_, to hide. It’s not related to “cash”.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-boxing-day/1026108.md?page=3)