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Boxing Day in the UK is a day when stores sell their excess Christmas stocks at slightly reduced prices hence the January Sales 2008. Boxing Day has become so important for retailers that they often extend it into a "Boxing Week".
Boxing Day in the UK is traditionally a day for sporting activity, originally fox hunting, but in modern times football and horse racing.
Boxing Day is a public holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and most other Commonwealth countries on December 26, the day after Christmas Day; or alternatively on the next weekday after Christmas.
The term originates in Victorian era Britain, for the day after Christmas, when the rich would box up gifts and bring them to the poor. The Christmas carol Good King Wenceslas sings about giving gifts of flesh, wine, and pine logs to a poor man on St. Stephen's Day.
In common usage, 26 December is continually referred to as Boxing Day no matter what the particular day that it occurs on.[3] If it falls on a Sunday then in countries where it is a Bank Holiday the Statutory Holiday is moved to Monday 27 December to ensure a day without work.[4][5][6] As Christmas Day would therefore be a Saturday, Tuesday 28 December is also declared as a holiday in lieu.
In some Commonwealth countries, fixed-date holidays falling on Saturday or Sunday are often observed on the next weekday, so if Boxing Day falls on a Saturday then Monday 28 December is a public holiday; in the UK and other countries this is accomplished by Royal Proclamation.
If Christmas Day falls on a Sunday itself then the Boxing Day holiday is automatically on Monday 26 December, and no Royal Proclamation is required. In such a circumstance, a 'substitute bank holiday in lieu of Christmas Day' is declared for Tuesday 27 December, this being the next available working day - thus the Boxing Day holiday occurs before the substitute Christmas holiday.
Although the same legislation (Bank Holidays Act 1871) originally established the Bank Holidays throughout the British Isles, the holiday after Christmas was defined as Boxing Day in England and Wales and St Stephen's Day for Ireland. St Stephen's Day is fixed as the 26 December.[7]
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