Boxing Day is quite a nebulous part of our calendar. No one is really quite sure what it’s for or what its origin is, but everyone has reckons about it. It doesn’t have a clear identity, like Christmas Day.
You know where you are with Christmas Day. It’s the dayyou open disappointing presents from relatives who barely know anything about you, and then you eat until you feel sick and drink a commensurate amount to wash it down, which never works, but is fun anyway. Boxing Day does not have the same strength of purpose.
Boxing Day, like any good superhero - and yes, I consider all statutory holidays akin to a superhero - has an origin story, but nowadays it’s really just whatever you make it, and I believe there are five main types:
1. The day you get rid of all the boxes
I quite like this approach. As a very tidy person, I can get on board with this - except I would prefer to clean up messes immediately after they’ve happened, so to me Christmas Day is the better day to tidy up. But I enjoy the elegance of assigning this role to Boxing Day.
There is one fishhook to this plan, however, and that is that no matter how much you spent on nephew Timmy’s present, he will enjoy the box far more than whatever came in it. So best not to throw it out just yet, unless you are the vindictive type. And who knows? Christmas brings out the monster in the best of us.
2. The day you nurse a hangover
There is something quite distinct about the Boxing Day hangover. Perhaps it’s how you start off with beers because it’s sunny, maybe chin-chin with some sparking wine. Then you have a lovely wee tipple of wine with the roast and of course a bit of sherry in the trifle. Then before you know it, it feels like a sad party with Uncle Dave cranking out the whisky, then if you’re lucky out comes the Tia Maria/Baileys/port that was last clutched tightly to a chest in a hazy duty-free fever, while you play President (we use the name that starts with A and ends in ‘hole’ in our family) over a sticky plastic tablecloth.
The result is the kind of photosensitive hangover where you find yourself rising from the crypt-like Nosferatu when you peel yourself out of a single bed in the spare room at Nanna’s.
After the festivities have died down comes Boxing Day. Photo / 123rf
3. The hair of the dog day
This is quite similar to the second type of Boxing Day but peppered with a couple of beers to take the edge off. Just remember getting as drunk as you were last night will be counterproductive.
BONUS: 3A - The day you exercise. I know, I know, it seems ridiculous, but I know of many people who use this day to explore nature or other somesuch drivel. They will live longer, but is it really worth it? (Just kidding this is quite a lovely idea really.)
4. The day you shop ‘til you drop
Look. I love a bargain. Don’t get me wrong. But I made the distinct mistake of going to a Boxing Day frenzy at Chadstone Mall in Melbourne one year. Despite the darn place being the biggest shopping centre in Australia, it also, that day, held all 25 million Australians. No thank you.
5. The day you give to the poor
This, you may know, is the origin of Boxing Day. Theories conflict on the significance of the ‘box’ in the name, but one is that it refers to churches opening alms boxes after Christmas and giving money in them to the poor.
But we don’t do that anymore - give to the poor on Boxing Day. We spend up large on ourselves because that’s way more fun. Shameless.
Then again, pretty much all of these types of Boxing Day are fairly shameless, even the giving to the poor in a public bit. Keep it subtle I reckon, make an anonymous donation to your local City Mission (or similar). Now that’s classy.
Boxed you into a corner there didn’t I?
Felix Desmarais is a journalist and mostly-former stand-up comedian.
