It’s Boxing Day.  And Sam Sam wants to celebrate with one of her favorite activities: boxing!

While our friends in the UK, Canada and elsewhere in the former British Empire actually celebrate the holiday, we at CatSynth in the United States just love the name. But we have long been curious about its significance and origin. From Wikipedia:

There are competing theories for the origins of the term, none of which are definitive.[5] The Oxford English Dictionary gives the earliest attestations from Britain in the 1830s, defining it as “the first week-day after Christmas-day, observed as a holiday on which post-men, errand-boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas-box”.[6]

The term “Christmas-box” dates back to the 17th century, and among other things meant:

A present or gratuity given at Christmas: in Great Britain, usually confined to gratuities given to those who are supposed to have a vague claim upon the donor for services rendered to him as one of the general public by whom they are employed and paid, or as a customer of their legal employer; the undefined theory being that as they have done offices for this person, for which he has not directly paid them, some direct acknowledgement is becoming at Christmas.[7]