Backstory: Boxing Day

Christmas Past

Brian Earl

Kids & Family, Society & Culture

4.9 • 791 Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Here in America, the day after Christmas is simply that: the day after. The party's over. But in England, it's an official holiday. December 26 — Boxing Day — is the Christmas afterparty you've been missing out on. What's the story? And what does it have to do with boxing? Paul Kerensa joins Christmas Past to...unpack the box. Mentioned in this EpisodePaul KerensaHark! The Biography of Christmas, by Paul KerensaMusic in this Episode"Good King Wenceslas" — U.S. Army Band, via Wikimedia C...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Remember that opening scene in a Christmas carol?
0:06.0	We're in Scrooge's Countinghouse.
0:08.0	It's Christmas Eve.
0:09.0	Scrooge has declared Christmas a humbug to his nephew Fred and told him,
0:13.0	If I could work my will, every idiot that goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips
0:19.0	should be boiled with his own pudding
0:21.8	and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.
0:25.5	He should.
0:26.7	Soon after that, he dismisses the charity collectors
0:29.3	who come round visiting
0:30.4	and chases away a caroler
0:32.3	who had attempted to sing God-rescue merry gentleman.
0:35.7	And just as he and his clerk Bob Cratchett are closing-up shop
0:38.8	for the night, Scrooge acknowledges in his cranky way that tomorrow is Christmas, and confirms
0:44.2	that Bob is expecting the whole day off. After additional grumbling at this from Scrooge,
0:49.2	he serves Cratchett with this admonition.
0:51.8	"'Well, I suppose you must have the whole day.
0:54.6	Be here all the earlier next morning.
0:57.7	Back to work the day after Christmas.
1:00.5	These days here in America, the day after Christmas is a mixed bag in terms of going back
1:04.6	to work.
1:05.5	It depends on your field or the kind of company you work for.
	...

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