NATIONWIDE BOXER DAY CELEBRATION, MONDAY DECEMBER 26, 2011
by Winsip Custer CPW News Service
In England it is called Boxer Day. December 26th of each year on the first or second weekday after Christmas. It is a legal holiday.
Sometimes called the Feast of St. Stephen (for the first Christian martyr, Saint Stephen, whom scripture says was stoned by a group of anti-Christian followers of Saul of Tarsus, also known as Saint Paul) Boxer Day originated in the middle of the nineteenth century under Queen Victoria who enjoyed annually sharing a gift box with her servants, especially her butler, John Brown. Boxing Day spread as a holiday for members of the merchant class who gave boxes containing food and fruit, clothing, and money to the working class tradesmen and women as an expression of gratitude, affection and domination. With the gifts placed in boxes the tradition caught on in the British Commonwealth nations around the world including India where all but the Untouchables participated. By the time gifts tricked down to the Untouchables it was known as Maundy Thursday with gift remnants often stirring street riots and causing the day to literally become associated with boxing and fist fights.
“We have decided to Americanize Boxing Day,” said Patrick McDougal McKinney McCleod of South Boston’s Friends of the Boxer Day Rebellion Compact. “We follow Christmas Carols with a routing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, drink lots of Irish grog or Scotch, salute the Magna Carta and U.S. Constitution, all followed by more grog and Scotch with pop corn and Mel Gibson’s movie The Patriot, and this year we’ll follow that with a video of Prince William’s wedding and his beautiful red, brass buttoned Eaton jacket, followed by the John Deere tractor episode, Episode 3.6, of the popular HBO television series The Mad Men,” said McCleod. "We might even throw in that Dr. Pepper scene at the hospital, remembering that it was probably the British that invented golf for the Scots at St. Andrews so that they'd swing at little balls with a stick instead of the Brit's heads with their Scottish Claymores," said McCleod.
When asked why that episode of Mad Men seemed appropriate when it was set on July 3rd instead of Boxer Day, McCleod said "Yea, but the presention of the Brit's gift box to their stooge in New York, Lane Pryce, seemed to us to capture the essense of the British snobbery which we feel flys in the face of the real Christmas spirit, so we'll be repeating the American Boxer Day Rebellion Celebration semi-annually on December 26 and July 4th, said McCleod who admitted that "Southies love a good reason to party hardy!"
When asked why that episode of Mad Men seemed appropriate when it was set on July 3rd instead of Boxer Day, McCleod said "Yea, but the presention of the Brit's gift box to their stooge in New York, Lane Pryce, seemed to us to capture the essense of the British snobbery which we feel flys in the face of the real Christmas spirit, so we'll be repeating the American Boxer Day Rebellion Celebration semi-annually on December 26 and July 4th, said McCleod who admitted that "Southies love a good reason to party hardy!"
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