As a child, I used to assume that Boxing Day meant one of three possible things:
1) It was the day we boxed up all our presents to take them home from our grandparents’. (We never did this, so it probably wasn’t option 1.)
2) After a day of celebrating together, we were now sick of our cousins and started boxing with them instead. (This sometimes happened, so it was possible.)
3) It had something to do with boxing kangaroos. (This made no sense, so it was quite likely because grown-up behaviour never made sense.)
It turns out that the tradition had nothing to do with any of these options. (I know, I’m as shocked as you are.) It also has nothing to do with people rushing out to take advantage of the Boxing Day sales to buy more things after a day of getting things. It’s actually an English tradition of giving gifts either to the poor or to workers and tradespeople. December 26th is also traditionally the feast of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr but also one of the Greek Christians chosen by the apostles to look after the poor widows in the church.
Both these traditions point to something that our society has lost sight of, especially at Christmas. In these twelve days of Christmas we have the opportunity to enter the full wonder of God Himself emptying himself of glory and entering human poverty to be one of us and to save us. Boxing Day, with its emphasis on generosity instead of consumption, seems the perfect way to enter this twelve day festival of God with us.
The Consolations of Writing 