Good Morning Kossacks and Welcome to Morning Open Thread (MOT)
We're known as the MOTley Crew and you can find us here every morning at 6:30 Eastern. Feel free to volunteer to take a day - permanently or just once in awhile. With the auto-publish feature you can set it and forget it. Sometime, the diarist du jour shows up much later, that's the beauty of Open Thread...it carries on without you! Just let us know in the comments. You can click on the Morning Open Thread "heart" if you'd like us to show up in your stream every day.
Doing one of these diaries is a good way to get your feet wet if you have been hesitant about writing a diary. You can write as much or as little as you want. The audience here is always supportive.
Boxing Day is December 26th, the day following Christmas and is celebrated in Great Britain and most areas settled by the English (the United States is the major exception), including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Boxing Day is believed to have begun over 800 years ago, during the Middle Ages. It was a day when the alms box, collection boxes for the poor often kept in churches, were traditionally opened so that the contents could be distributed to poor people. Some churches still open these boxes on Boxing Day.
In Holland, some collection boxes were made out of a rough pottery and were shaped like pigs. Perhaps this is where we get the term 'Piggy Bank'!
One clue to the origins of Boxing Day may come from the song "Good King Wenceslas" (Duke of Bohemia in the early 10th century) who, according to the carol, was surveying his land on December 26 and spotted a poor man gathering wood in the midst of a snowstorm. The King gathered surplus food and wine and carried it to the peasant's home.
Servants were required to work on Christmas day and it is believed that December 26th was the the traditional day on which the aristocracy distributed presents (boxes) to servants and employees — a sort of institutionalized Christmas-bonus party. The servants returned home, opened their boxes and had a second Christmas on what became known as Boxing Day.
The Feast of St. Stephen also takes place on December 26. St. Stephen was one of the seven original deacons of the Christian Church who were ordained by the Apostles to care for widows and the poor. For the success of his preaching and his devotion to Christ, St. Stephen was stoned to death by a mob. As he died, he begged God not to punish his killers.
There was a second St. Stephen who was a Missionary, in Sweden, in the 800's. He loved all animals but particularly horses (perhaps why there is horse racing on boxing day). He was also a martyr and was killed by pagans in Sweden. In Germany there was a tradition that horses would be ridden around the inside of the church during the St. Stephen's Day service!
Whichever version you care to recognize - if any at all - let me wish you all a happy, merry Boxing Day.