Demystifying Boxing Day
What the hell is Boxing Day anyways?
All I know for sure is that the words ‘Boxing Day’ are only ever used nowadays in conjunction with the word ‘Sale’ and that it’s the one-day of the year that I wouldn’t dare venture into any public shopping mall without a fully fueled flame-thrower. Venturing into the shopping malls on this day, December 26th is like committing willful suicide. Shoppers frantically scour the aisles for discounted savings and pick off any and all leftover merchandise still on the shelves like locust. Often you will find said shoppers engaged in full on hand-to-hand combat over cheap-ass Bargain Bin merchandise that they wouldn't ordinarily have been interested in had they not been so overcome with Boxing Day-mania in the first place.
It is entirely possible to witness people duking it out gypsy-style in the aisles over chipped ceramic candy plates and loganberry-scented candles. Normally, these type of items wouldn't be fit to give to homeless people; but on Boxing Day they are the Holy Grail of discounted purchases!
One only needs to poke their head through the front doors of any Shopping Center to get a sense of the madness that rages within. You can almost smell the desperation wafting from frenzied shoppers still hoping to save themselves a few pennies on new electronic devises that will inevitably break by February. It is expected today that every shopper on the average will spend about $350 extra dollars on themselves.
That’s a lot of 'Soap-on-a-Rope' people!
But surely there must be a larger picture at work than special one-day merchandising discounts and clearance sales. The Boxing Day tradition began in Britain possibly as early as the Middle Ages; with regards to its origin, there are two main schools of thought. Some historians maintain that it began as a holiday tradition where house servants, who always had to work on Christmas days, were rewarded the day after. Their employers would put gifts such as food, clothing, or money in “Christmas boxes,” which the servants would then take with them as they departed for family visits. Others say that Boxing Day is so named because churches collected money for the poor in wooden boxes and usually opened them to hand out alms on the day after Christmas. Whatever the case, the bottom line is that somebody always has their hand out for something – and most recently in today's day and age, stores use ‘Boxing Day’ to offer bargains in order to clear out their year-end merchandise on savings-hungry customers. Reduced to the simplest essence, its origins are found in a long-ago practice of giving cash or durable goods to those of the lower classes. Sounds identical to what still happens in the aisles at your local Walmart if you ask me.
Most notably, Boxing Day also happens to fall on the ‘Feast of St. Stephen’, the martyred deacon who was stoned to death by an angry mob for his devoted piety and faith in Christ. But lets face it, Boxing Day is about as Christian as Coca-Cola. But if this still isn't enough of a reason to spend money on discounted iPods and cell phones – I don’t know what is.
All I know for sure is that the words ‘Boxing Day’ are only ever used nowadays in conjunction with the word ‘Sale’ and that it’s the one-day of the year that I wouldn’t dare venture into any public shopping mall without a fully fueled flame-thrower. Venturing into the shopping malls on this day, December 26th is like committing willful suicide. Shoppers frantically scour the aisles for discounted savings and pick off any and all leftover merchandise still on the shelves like locust. Often you will find said shoppers engaged in full on hand-to-hand combat over cheap-ass Bargain Bin merchandise that they wouldn't ordinarily have been interested in had they not been so overcome with Boxing Day-mania in the first place.
It is entirely possible to witness people duking it out gypsy-style in the aisles over chipped ceramic candy plates and loganberry-scented candles. Normally, these type of items wouldn't be fit to give to homeless people; but on Boxing Day they are the Holy Grail of discounted purchases!
One only needs to poke their head through the front doors of any Shopping Center to get a sense of the madness that rages within. You can almost smell the desperation wafting from frenzied shoppers still hoping to save themselves a few pennies on new electronic devises that will inevitably break by February. It is expected today that every shopper on the average will spend about $350 extra dollars on themselves.
That’s a lot of 'Soap-on-a-Rope' people!
But surely there must be a larger picture at work than special one-day merchandising discounts and clearance sales. The Boxing Day tradition began in Britain possibly as early as the Middle Ages; with regards to its origin, there are two main schools of thought. Some historians maintain that it began as a holiday tradition where house servants, who always had to work on Christmas days, were rewarded the day after. Their employers would put gifts such as food, clothing, or money in “Christmas boxes,” which the servants would then take with them as they departed for family visits. Others say that Boxing Day is so named because churches collected money for the poor in wooden boxes and usually opened them to hand out alms on the day after Christmas. Whatever the case, the bottom line is that somebody always has their hand out for something – and most recently in today's day and age, stores use ‘Boxing Day’ to offer bargains in order to clear out their year-end merchandise on savings-hungry customers. Reduced to the simplest essence, its origins are found in a long-ago practice of giving cash or durable goods to those of the lower classes. Sounds identical to what still happens in the aisles at your local Walmart if you ask me.
Most notably, Boxing Day also happens to fall on the ‘Feast of St. Stephen’, the martyred deacon who was stoned to death by an angry mob for his devoted piety and faith in Christ. But lets face it, Boxing Day is about as Christian as Coca-Cola. But if this still isn't enough of a reason to spend money on discounted iPods and cell phones – I don’t know what is.
posted by crazytigerrabbitman at
6:16 PM
1 Comments:
American malls don't have "Boxing Day" sales...damn Americans!
By
STP, at 8:04 AM
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