Saturday, December 26, 2009

boxing day

I was thinking about Christmas and its aftermath the other day. I had always heard about Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, but never why it was called that. What did it mean? A little internet research quickly turned up that it was probably British in origin, dating back to the time of Victoria, and, surprisingly (to me) a true expression of the class divide. One explanation from Time magazine:
The day after Christmas was also the traditional day on which the aristocracy distributed presents (boxes) to servants and employees— a sort of institutionalized Christmas bonus party. The servents returned home, opened their boxes, and had a second Christmas on what became known as Boxing Day.
Can you imagine Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, the lord of the manor lining up all his servants in the hall and bestowing gifts upon them? There could be no "gifting up." It was a one-way gift street. And only once a year. It seems after the main event of Christmas Day, when the lord had celebrated with his family, he could then, the day after the actual holiday, share some Christmas cheer with the lower classes. What better way to celebrate the holiday than to deeply underline the us and them by not exchanging gifts, and not gifting on the actual day? Second-class Christmas.


Some organizations are (unconsciously?) perpetuating this divide at their holiday office parties. Upper management serves some punch or eggnog to their staff, all with the intent and forced jollity of the season. But how different is it from the days of the manor house? Employees can't gift up—very bad—that would be the equivalent of brown-nosing. The uppers, by serving their employees, just reinforce the divide between the office tiers. If they really wanted to celebrate the spirit of the season they would be out among their staff, circulating, sharing stories around a horrible fruitcake. Not safely ensconced from all banter behind the eggnog bar. It's difficult to navigate business and social interaction.

Boxing Day, the second day of Christmas (two turtle doves!), is also St. Stephen's Day, and some think that the carol Good King Wenceslas holds a clue:
Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night, tho' the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gath'ring winter fuel.

"Hither, page, and stand by me, if thou know'st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?" . . .

"Bring me flesh, and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither:
Thou and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither."

. . . Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.
As the ruling classes were less and less (obviously) prominent in society, regular folks could and would bestow a gift or tip to anyone who serves them, such as a paperboy, concierge, etc. I'm not against tipping the doorman, the housekeeper or anyone that has done you a service that you feel could use an extra perk around the holidays. Many of us, myself included, perpetuate this custom, not making the Boxing Day connection.

Today the holiday in the British isles has become an extra day off work, celebrated mostly as a shopping extravaganza, with folks racing to after-holiday sales. Some folks hold football matches or hunts. A few sites say that volunteering at shelters or places in need is also encouraged, but it's hard to determine how much of King Wenceslas remains.


My daughter and I were watching Kit Kittredge: An American Girl the other day and it was interesting to watch how much class played into The Great Depression—something I had never realized, even with my parents' and grandparents' stories of that era. As the heroine's family fortunes decline, she is ridiculed by her classmates, her parents shunned by neighbors—all because of the indignity of a lost job, taking in boarders, and the raising of chickens to sell eggs for profit. Kit gradually accepts her status and sees how little she differs from folks that a few weeks before she might have called tramps or hobos. There is a great scene at the end of the movie where the family sits down to Thanksgiving dinner, sharing the table with some of their hobo friends along with one of the town's prominent businessmen.

This is the message that I'm looking for. Not merely bestowing, but actually sharing. What a thought.

2 comments:

jane said...

This made me think that at least in England and in Europe there is a more honest acknowledgement of class and its effects than here America. Sure we say "Middle Class" but we rarely use the terms "Upper Class" and "Lower Class" anymore in our politically correct dialogues. I think this works in favor of those who would like to ignore the benefits of being born with money and privilege. The rich in this country would like us all to believe they are hardworking self made individuals. Some maybe, but many more are simply members of an upper class that takes care of its own. How lucky for them that it is politically incorrect to call them by a term that might acknowledge the privilege they enjoy or the responsibilities that should be attached. Also convenient that the lower classes can be ignored just by refusing to name them. Maybe there was some good in Boxing Day. The rich should gift down. It may not be enough to hand out some presents once a year, but it beats a system that fails to acknowledge that class really exists while carefully perpetuating it. Come on, we're all just hardworking Americans enjoying equal opportunities right? The Great American Dream might well be renamed The Great American Myth.

xoxoxo said...

Really good points, Jane. I was looking at it from the other direction. I'm not sure we could ever get Americans to accept that there is an upper class. America has been so brainwashed that we can all become millionaires that folks who live in trailers vote for patrician elitists because they think we are all the same, with th same values and opportunities.

I'm so torn on this one. There's nothing wrong with going for the gold star, and II would never want to set limitations in front of my daughter to think that she can't achieve anything she wants. If I hadn't been encouraged to believe that I could do anything I set my mind to, well my life would be very different today and I wouldn't have taken some of the risks that got me to Parsons, etc. But I do agree that it might be useful to teach about class differences, not just as history, but as reality. It wouldn't be such a difficult concept for kids to grasp, with their daily ingestion of princess and peasant stories!

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