Boxing Day / St Stephen's Day

The 26^th of December, the day after Christmas, is known as “Boxing Day” in Australia and a number of other Commonwealth countries, including the United Kingdom , New Zealand and Canada.  The term “Boxing Day” originated in England centuries ago, and represented the day when servants were allowed to take the day off to spend with their families.  It was also the day when gifts were given to tradesmen and staff for their service throughout the year. 

Nowadays in Australia, Boxing Day is predominantly a secular (i.e. non-church) public holiday and marks the start of the post-Christmas shopping sales, which generally run until New Years Eve.  Of course, everyone knows, though, that if you want to get the best bargains you have to be there when the shop doors open on Boxing Day morning, before the greatly reduced-in-price stock sells out.

Boxing Day also has religious connections though.  The 26^th December is recognised in Western Christianity as St Stephen’s Day – St Stephen being the first Christian martyr – and as St Stephens Day , it is a public holiday in many nations that are historically Catholic, Anglican or Lutheran (including Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Italy, Germany, and Finland). 

St Stephen, if you're interested, was stoned to death around CE 34-35 by Saul of Tarsus, a zealous Jew who persecuted the early followers of Christ, but who later converted to Christianity and becomes (eventually) St Paul.  Paul preached to the Gentiles (non-Jews) about Christ and is credited with writing a large number of the epistles in the New Testament.  He was also one of the early Christian leaders and takes some credit in bringing Christianity to Rome (which is the seat of the Roman Catholic Church).

Interestingly, though, in the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite, Saint Stephen's feast day is celebrated on December 27.   However, to add more confusion to the issue, the Eastern Orthodox Church still follows the Julian calendar for its religious rites and calculating the dates of moveable feasts,  which leads “27^th December” to be the 7^th January in the Gregorian calendar (the one used prominently around the world in modern day times).

Others might recognise reference to this day in the carol Good King Wencelas  “….last looked out, on the Feast of Stephen……” 

Something else Boxing Day in modern times may be remembered for are the disasters that have occurred on or around this day and Christmas.  In 2004, there was the Boxing Day Tsunami which was triggered by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake underwater near Indonesia and killed thousands of people.

Currently, in 2010, around the world there are many examples of extreme weather and recent natural disasters including snow storms and freezing conditions in England, Europe and the United States of America; an earthquake in Iran on 21^st December; torrential rains and mudslides in South America; and aftershocks are still being felt in New Zealand after their September earthquake.

In Australia there is flooding in New South Wales and Queensland as the result of a category 1 cyclone Tara which has now dissipated.  In 1974, Cyclone Tracy devastated our northern most Capital City, Darwin, on Christmas Eve.

One of Australia’s best known poems, by Dorothea Mackellar, has a stanza that begins with:

            “I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains,

            Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains….”

In Australia, it seems to be either one extreme or the other.  In fact, Australians have been warned to expect six cyclones this summer season which will bring lots of rain and consequently more flooding.   Quite a contradiction as not so long ago, the country was in drought and local governments had introduced water restrictions.  And drought has other repercussions, namely bushfires due to the extremely dry conditions. 

Christmas Eve 2001 is regarded as the official beginning  of an outbreak of major bushfires in New South Wales, which later became known as “Black Christmas”.  Fortunately no lives were lost on this occasion, though hundreds of houses and buildings and huge tracts of land were destroyed.

Although the main fire activity ended on 7 January 2002 following heavy overnight rain around Sydney, the NSW Fire Brigades continued its operations in the South Coast region until 11 January 2002.

That fire outbreak in particular puts a whole new spin on the “Twelve Days of Christmas”, but that’s another story.