Less a question about the origins of the name (I've heard different versions, and can't be bothered finding out which is definitive), more a question about usage. Is the name only used in those parts of the Commonwealth where English is first language? Does anybody else call the 26th Boxing Day?

Those testing the "customer service" cues returning unwanted gifts.

USns normally call it the day after Christmas. Some may know it as St. Stephen's Day, which Pogophiles would know, from the carol Good King Sauerkraut, as "his feets uneven."

I've always understood it to be the first working day after Christmas rather than the first day after Christmas. Am I wrong?

>'ve always understood it to be the first working day after Christmas rather than the first day after Christmas. Am I wrong?

Here, the 26th is officially called Boxing Day, and is a statutory holiday, unless it falls on a weekend, in which case the next working day is given as a holiday in its stead. That replacement holiday is not called Boxing Day though.

Wrong again faldage. In the United States the 26th of December is not called the day after Christmas, in the United States the day after Christmas is called "My Birthday".

Milum.

Happy Birthday, Milo!

we call it just "the second day of christmas". i suppose, it's because we like calling things what they really are

Here is URL about it:
[url]www.craigmarlatt.com/craig/canada/symbols_facts&lists/boxing_day.html[/uel]

Happy Birthday Milo.
Hope you get lots of presents. Please tell me you get special presents and not "doubles."
Oh, ever done any boxing?
Many happy returns of the day.

Thanks Consuelo, thanks Wow, for remembering after my reminder that my birthday is today. I was afraid for a minute there that my gentle reminder was too subtle.

And yes Wow, I boxed Golden Gloves for two years before the sport was discontinued at the Birmingham Boy's Club because it was discovered that jarring blows to the head damaged the brain. Lucky me I got out while I still had my wits about me.

But then again how would I know?

Happy (belated!) Birthday, Milo! [big-kiss e]

and...re: "the second day of Christmas" - Boxing Day, or December 26, is actually the FIRST day of Christmas (it's weird, I know) - January 6 is therefore the 12th Day, aka Epiphany (see "the 12 Days of Christmas" for a list of presents to send Milo). Traditionally Epiphany is the day all the ornaments are supposed to come down, and any that get left up by mistake are supposed to be left up for a year. Hm. Maybe that explains why people still have their Christmas lights up in March....

...and...re: "the second day of Christmas" - Boxing Day, or December 26, is actually the FIRST day of Christmas (it's weird, I know)

Unless you are a musician, then it actually® is the second day of Christmas... just ask JazzO.

http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=metawords&Number=47091

Does anybody else call the 26th Boxing Day?

It's always been known here as St. Stephen's day. We've never accepted the status quo of 800 years of Imperialistic rule....

ahem.

I believe Boxing Day is so called because those in service were required to work on Christmas day and received a patronising 'box' on the 26th.

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....