a patronising 'box'

on the ears?!

Rubrick, your antagonism is showing!

I did a bit o' research on Boxing Day, for a Boxing Day supplement to the local paper, and one source suggested that the name came from it being the day on which the alms-boxes in the churches were opened and the contents, which had been collected all year long, shared out among the poor. Another source suggested what Rubrick sez: that patrons gave the poor boxes on this day; only I think they were landowners, lords and the like, giving boxes of clothing and food to their serfs and servants. Same idea for the carol Good King Wenceslas, who looked out on the Feast of Stephen and then decided to take some goodies to a feller he saw struggling through the snow....