26 December

  • Thread starter Thread starter Matthew_Holford
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
MarkThompson said:
We don’t have an official national calendar that decrees what name a given day will have. It’s just as much the First Day of Kwanzaa here as it is St. Stephen’s Day, or whatever else you want to call it.
Click to expand...
Ditto this. Dec. 26th doesn’t have any official name/title in the US, because it’s not a civil holiday. So it can be everything – the first day of Kwanzaa, St. Stephen’s Day, Boxing Day, in some years one of the days of Hanukkah, and anything else you want.

Like a previous poster, as a child I thought it was called Boxing Day because that’s when you’d box up any unwanted gifts and return them to the store… and my brother thought that there must be lots of boxing matches scheduled that day in the UK. 🙂
 
MarkThompson said:
We don’t have an official national calendar that decrees what name a given day will have. It’s just as much the First Day of Kwanzaa here as it is St. Stephen’s Day, or whatever else you want to call it.
Click to expand...
What is Kwanzaa?
 
Matthew_Holford said:
What is Kwanzaa?
Click to expand...
A hybrid version of Christmas and Hanukkah invented in the 70’s by a professor in California for African-Americans. It’s somehow based around a “harvest” theme, never mind that no harvest is being taken in in December even in Africa. It also has “four pillars” and “seven principles,” or somesuch, all invented. No one takes it seriously except white people who want to make a show of being racially sensitive. In 20 more years it will be a vague memory.
 
Romanova said:
Ditto this. Dec. 26th doesn’t have any official name/title in the US, because it’s not a civil holiday. So it can be everything – the first day of Kwanzaa, St. Stephen’s Day, Boxing Day, in some years one of the days of Hanukkah, and anything else you want.

Like a previous poster, as a child I thought it was called Boxing Day because that’s when you’d box up any unwanted gifts and return them to the store… and my brother thought that there must be lots of boxing matches scheduled that day in the UK. 🙂
Click to expand...
We call it Boxing Day because it was the day when servants and tradesmen were given their Christmas boxes - a gift as a reward for their service throughout the year. Conventionally it should be on the first weekday after Christmas Day, so not necessarily the 26th. This year in UK the public holiday will actually be on Tuesday 28th December because 26th falls on a Sunday. (Monday 27th will be a public holiday because Christmas Day falls on a Saturday.) The holiday is now mainly observed in the public sector. The vast majority of retail outlets will be open on Boxing Day (and even this year that means 26th). As for boxing itself, while its not a day particularly for this sport it has become a custom for many sports to be held on this day, particularly football (what we Brits called association football and North Americans call soccer) and, until it was banned, fox hunting.
 
Normally, the 26th is observed as civil holiday in the U.S. if Christmas falls on a Sunday.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top