Boxing to New Year’s

If you live in New York and have just come in from a winter wonderland and are now roasting chestnuts by an open fire and reading about the “Boxing Day Blizzard of 2010,” you might be wondering just what “Boxing Day” is. Ms. Picky, who has taken to her bed, suffering from an overdose of snow and Christmas music, suggests some possibilities. 

Boxing Day is a British and Commonwealth public holiday that occurs, in most countries that observe it, on December 26, the day after Christmas. In Ireland, the holiday is known as “St. Stephen’s Day,” and in South Africa as the “Day of Goodwill.” So now you know when it is, but, if you didn’t already know what it is, you're no better off than you were before. Ms. Picky would love to help out here, but it seems that the origin of the word and the holiday is a little unclear, and so the best she can offer is several competing theories.

One theory is that, in Victorian England (or, some say, since the Middle Ages), the day was reserved for almsgiving, and the name derived from the boxes placed outside churches, to collect offerings for the poor.

Another possible answer is that, since, on Christmas Day, somebody had to serve all that Victorian goose in all those drafty old manor houses, the servants needed a separate Christmas holiday of their own, on the day after Christmas. Their employers, according to this version of the story, would pack up boxes of leftover plum pudding and mincemeat pies for the servants to take home to their own families.

The name “Boxing Day” could also have been derived from Victorian tradesmen’s soliciting of Christmas boxes of gifts that were given to insure good service for the following year, much the way we receive Christmas cards from our newspaper-delivery and mail persons, and then give them envelopes of cash.

Finally, some social historians maintain that Boxing Day was so named because it was the day on which any Christmas gifts that were going to be returned or exchanged were boxed and made ready for the transaction.

Fortunately, one does not need to take a position supporting one or another of these theories; most likely, all of them have some element of truth.

Moving right along to the next holiday, let’s take a look at its traditional song. The holiday is New Year’s, and the song is “Auld Lang Syne”:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And days of auld lang syne?

You probably have a sense of what “auld lang syne” means, but raise your hand if you know what it literally means (and read on if you don’t). The song is attributed to Robert Burns, but there are also said to have been earlier versions of the ballad. It is probably safe, at least, to credit him with creating the version we now sing after the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve—about old friends who meet again after a long separation, have a drink together, and reminisce of “old long-ago.” (Yes, “old long-ago” is the literal translation, but a more idiomatic one would be that they were having a drink “for old times’ sake.”) So, raise your glasses to fond memories of auld lang syne and old friends—and happy 2011!

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Bulletin Board

FOR VJ: UNIQUE

The word unique has as its root “uni” (as in unit), which means one, and unique means having the quality of being the only one of its kind. That being so, one can see that something can be unique, but that it cannot ever be either more unique or less unique, because no comparison is possible when a category contains only one thing.

FOR EK: BESIDE AND BESIDES

Beside means “next to.” Besides means “in addition to.” This is basic and should never be confused.

Examples:

She sat beside him.

Besides sending flowers, he also brought chocolates.