Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Lingering mystery of Boxing Day, even among British expats

From Philadelphia-

On Dec. 26, an inch over from the biggest holiday on the Christian calendar, there it is: Boxing Day, usually followed by parentheses containing the letters U.K.

Those who follow British culture and sports have heard the day referenced obliquely in period dramas and by soccer commentators. It popped up Saturday morning on a live telecast of a Tottenham-Stoke City match being shown in a Society Hill pub.

"There's a lot of soccer that day, but I don't know what the significance of it is," said Danny Hayde, 27, from Elizabethtown, Pa., as he watched the game in Cav's Dark Horse on Second Street.

"I think it's something to do with packing up your stuff," he said.

Across Britain and much of the Commonwealth - countries including Canada and New Zealand - Boxing Day is a public holiday that has become synonymous with shopping and a daylong schedule of sporting events.

But its origins are a mystery even to many of the British expatriates who call the Philadelphia region home.


More here-

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20121226_Lingering_mystery_of_Boxing_Day__even_among_British_expats.html

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