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Boxing Day

Today is Boxing Day in pretty much every English speaking country except the U.S. Which is kinda odd because Americans love holidays and any excuse to party. But then a lot of us get the day after Christmas off from work anyway, and a good number get the entire week off as many businesses have learned their employees are not worth crap for the week between Christmas and New Years, so it’s better to just shut the doors and be done with it.

I spent one Boxing Day in London, and asked several different locals to explain the holiday. I got the same answer from everyone: It’s the day we box up the stuff we got for Christmas we don’t like and return it to the store. And I give Thais a bad time for their sense of humor.

But it turns out no one is really sure what the ‘boxing’ part of the day refers to. The most likely theory is it was the traditional day that people gave money and other gifts to those who were needy and/or in service positions. In the UK, it was a custom for tradesmen to collect ‘Christmas boxes’ of money or presents on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year. This custom is linked to an older English tradition: in exchange for ensuring that wealthy landowners’ Christmases ran smoothly, their servants were allowed to take the 26th off to visit their families. The employers gave each servant a box containing gifts and bonuses (and sometimes leftover food).

But Google tells me that where celebrated today, Boxing Day is really a late version of the U.S.’s major shopping day, Black Friday. For many merchants, Boxing Day has become the day of the year with the greatest revenue. In the UK in 2009 it was estimated that up to 12 million shoppers appeared at the sales. Boxing Day is a time where shops have sales, often with dramatic price decreases. Like Black Friday in the U.S., many retailers open very early (typically 5 am or even earlier) and offer doorbuster deals and loss leaders to draw people to their stores. It is not uncommon for long queues to form early in the morning of 26 December, hours before the opening of shops holding the big sales. Of course in the U.S., we have long lines instead of queues, but otherwise? Same-same.

And like Black Friday, in more recent years, customer stampedes, injuries and even fatalities occur on Boxing Day because nothing says Christmas time like greed. This year in the U.S. a new tradition was started for Black Friday: shoppers armed themselves with pepper spray, no longer content to use small appliances as weapons. A nice heads up for Boxing Day celebrants, we’ll see if ya’ll take the cue from the world’s most voracious consumers.

It would seem a holiday devoted to shopping would be a popular one in the U.S. But most of the citizens of this country have already maxed out their credit cards to ensure their holidays were bright. Another major shopping day with deep discounts and vicious crowds? For most Americans I think it’s not that we wouldn’t like yet another official holiday, but rather it’s a case of been there, done that a month ago. Besides, we’re all busy getting ready for the supreme party of the year at the end of the week.

Whether you celebrate Boxing Day or not, the important part is that it gives me an excuse to post some pix of hot studs in boxers. And that’s a holiday I can get behind.

hot guy in boxer shorts

hot guy in boxer shorts

hot guy in boxer shorts

hot guy in boxer shorts

hot guy in boxer shorts

hot guy in boxer shorts

hot guy in boxer shorts