So this is Boxing Day, and what have you boxed?

Behold: My people.

Hey everybody, today is Boxing Day! What the hell is Boxing Day? I always thought it was like some kind of Canadian Christmas. They have all their holidays on the wrong day. For example, the Canadian Thanksgiving? It's in October for some reason. Oh, and Canada Day, the imaginatively named Canadian version of the 4th of July? That's on July 1st. Once again those mounted, hockey playing abooters have beaten us to the punch. And yes I can say that, I'm one quarter Canadian, so it's ok.

Superior British technology will
allow for triple-decker buses by 2014. 

Anyway, I did some research (and by research I mean wikipedia) on the subject of Boxing Day and it's not originally Canadian but an invention of their overlords, the British. In the U.K. Boxing Day combines the drunken fandom of Thanksgiving Football (the soccer kind) with Black Friday, where deep discounts draw shoppers out of their quaint Hobbit holes in search of bargains. However, unlike the frenzied day after Thanksgiving Wal-Mart massacres we have here in the states, the civilized Brits settle quarrels over the last kipper at Tesco's with words instead of fisticuffs. Truly they are an advanced people.

Like the public executions of Guy Fawkes Night or the alien invasions of Christmas, Boxing Day has an origin story. It started as the day rich people set aside to give presents (presumably tiny crutches and gruel) to their servants and the needy. You see, 19th century England was a cruel, soot-covered nightmare of class stratification and organ meat pies and they didn't want the poor bumming out rich people on Christmas. How thoughtful. Happy Boxing Day everybody!

Above: The traditional orphan hunt,
a Boxing Day favorite since 1764.