It's the day after Christmas. Most schools, colleges and universities are closed, and will be for the rest of this week, as is the custom for the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.
Here in the US, banks, post offices and many workplaces are closed. I claim some responsibility for that. You see, I am really Canadian. Really, I am: Je suis canadienne. (Is there a gender-neutral term for "Canadian" in French?) Today is a holiday in the Great North, and in Jamaica, Australia and, of course, the UK.
In other words, it's celebrated just about everywhere English is spoken--except for the US. When we declared our independence from the Crown, it seems that we tried to break every one of His/Her Majesty's customs and traditions--except, of course, for speaking English. But we altered the meanings and usage of many words, and the conventions of speech of writing, to the point that George Bernard Shaw once quipped that America and England are separated by a common language.
Today things are closed in the US mainly because it's Monday and Federal law says that if certain holidays fall on a weekend, the subsequent Monday is a holiday.
But I'm going to allow myself to think that we're really celebrating Boxing Day because, well, why shouldn't we? According to some sources, this holiday originated with upper-class families who sent their help--who, of course, worked on Christmas Day--home with boxes of gifts and food for their families. Other sources say that it was simply a day of charity, when boxes were given to the poor.
Today, of course, few people in any of the countries that observe this holiday think about those origins. But many people--some of whom, like Moses and Ann Mathis, I've mentioned on this blog--keep up with the tradition in their own ways: They collect and, sometimes, repair bikes that go to children who might not otherwise get them.
NSW couple reach out through social media to gift refurbished bikes to kids doing it tough https://t.co/IspkgWQUEt via @ABCaustralia
— Justine Valinotti (@madame_mercian) December 26, 2022
Kellie Ward and Jason McMillan also are keeping up the tradition. Two years ago, the Tamworth, Australia couple bought a second-hand bike, fixed it up and offered it to a family in need via social media. They received 40 responses. Two years later, businesses have pitched in with enough bike parts, helmets and other items for 11 kids to receive bikes.
While it's odd that a Southern Hemisphere country where Summer begins in December adopted the customs of a Winter holiday from the Northern Hemisphere, it's nice to see that folks like Ward and McMillan are, in their own way, keeping up one of England's more laudable traditions.
Oh, and I wouldn't mind seeing Boxing Day enshrined as a holiday in the US. After all, as Stephen Marche points out in his Times editorial, sometimes people need a holiday from a holiday!
