Happy Boxing Day

December 26, 2008 by Gene Veith 3 Comments

Other English-speaking lands celebrate the day after Christmas as Boxing Day. It’s a day to give gifts to the people who serve you. First it was servants, when even the middle class had servants, but then it extended to others, including pastors. Sounds like another holiday about vocation! A day to be thankful for the vocation of others who love and serve you as their neighbor. Let’s bring Boxing Day to America! Go here for a nice site dedicated to the Christian observance of Boxing Day.

UPDATE: Bruce Gee reminds us that it is also St. Stephen’s Day. Which means that today is the day we should sing “Good King Winceslas,” who went out not on Christmas but on “the Feast of Stephen,” and there, where the snow was deep and crisp and even, he met a poor man and brought him inside, thereby celebrating Boxing Day!

Filed Under: History, Vocation 3 Comments

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« Peace on Earth in India after all

Cool Christmas presents »

About Gene Veith

Professor of Literature at Patrick Henry College, the Director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary, a columnist for World Magazine and TableTalk, and the author of 18 books on different facets of Christianity & Culture.

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Bruce Gee
Happy, for that matter, St. Stephen’s Day.
Remembering martyrdom on the day after Xmas has always struck me as an interesting incongruity. Yet here is Valerius Herberger:
“Reverent hearts, it is an old, laudable custom to commemorate St. Stephen on the second day of Christmas. For just as the innocent children were the first martyrs after Christ’s birth, so also St. Stephen was the first martyr after Christ’s ascension to praise our glorious King Jesus with his blood…”