Return of the Grinch - Boxing Day Humbug

In my last Newsletter I mentioned that when it came to Christmas I wasn’t a Grinch. Well Christmas is over - meet the Grinch of Boxing Day.

Boxing Day takes place on December 26th and is only celebrated in a few countries; mainly ones historically connected to the UK (such as Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand) and in some European countries.

I’m not sure if it happens to the same extent these days. But a few years back there were always stories of families, poorer families of course, who had given cash or vouchers on Christmas Day so the family could get more for their money in the Boxing Day Sales.

“Sorry kids the big sale doesn’t start until the day after, so no gift on Christmas Day for you! Instead we’ll be spending Boxing Day queuing at a mall because this helps retailers keep selling when it would have been really quiet otherwise.”

We used to legislate for time off for people, for families to spend time together. When I was a kid, as no doubt many of you recall, there was Saturday morning trading but then shops closed for the afternoon and everything was closed on a Sunday.

Over time we have chipped away at all the days and holidays that we once kept for relaxation and family. All in the name of commerce - buy more now! Your children will know you love them, not from your time spent together - but from the plastic shit you buy them that will end up in a landfill six months from now.

We can't have Easter trading restrictions, or shops closed on a Sunday, or people just sitting around on Boxing day - there is money to be made!

Many aspects of working life have improved over time, laws around working hours, pay rates, and health and safety. But in terms of keeping commerce operating, businesses want more and more - enough is never enough. They want those with less money to give up their holiday time and queue to give them what they have - tis the reason for the season after all.

So how did we get here?

The name comes from a time when the rich used to box up gifts to give to the poor. Boxing Day was traditionally a day off for servants - a day when they received a special Christmas box from their masters. The servants would also go home on Boxing Day to give Christmas boxes to their families.

When I was a kid Boxing Day was always about catching up with friends or family you hadn’t seen on Christmas Day. Usually pretty laid back - a picnic or a BBQ. Left overs from the day before - easy for everyone.

Nowadays after one day off on the 25th, spent with family and not buying things, Boxing Day has become a day to shop. To buy more, a day when businesses want staff and customers to spend their public holiday at the mall, not on a picnic!

The Boxing Day Sales announcements commence even before you’ve finished preparing for Christmas. There you are sitting down to watch a nice family movie on Christmas Eve and all of a sudden Noel Leeming is telling you to get down there on Boxing Day for their Price Smash! They’ll be open from 7:30am, so no need to waste time with a lie in on Boxing Day Kiwis, they’re opening the shops especially early.

Put down that cricket bat or frisbee and buy stuff, buy till it hurts! That is what your short existence in life is for, to make money for other people so they can have more and more and more and more - I could go on - there is no end, no point where enough would be enough.

Boxing Day is also time for that other great Kiwi tradition - selling crap you didn’t want, or need, on Trade Me. In other words - how to turn that $100 your Nan spent buying something for you into $75 dollars of sweet cash overnight.

Boxing Day is a traditional day of sporting events. The premier league football returns in the UK ensuring the players didn’t celebrate Christmas too much and then the holiest of holies - the Boxing Day Test match at the MCG.

Sadly of course Boxing Day will long be associated with the tragic Tsunami in 2004. I remember that day so clearly as the news came in, Johnny was a new baby and Fi and I were staying at my in-laws Bach with her folks.

Fi and my in-laws had all spent a lot of time living in South East Asia, mainly Thailand. It felt very close to home. The previous year Fi and I had met up with my father in law John in Phuket for a sailing regatta - as one does. It was there we found out Fi was pregnant. The hotel we had stayed in, where we sat excitedly telling family the news, was completely wiped out.

So what do we do about it?

Perhaps we need to change the name? What started as bosses giving a box of gifts to workers is now workers spending their holiday buying boxes from big box retailers - I guess it's still Boxing, just a different kind.

Family Day in Vanuatu is celebrated annually on December 26, traditionally Boxing Day, as a day on which school and work are suspended to spend the day giving thanks for and enjoying time with one's family, often by engaging in civic and religious events and a festive meal.

That sounds ideal, but you just know if we did it here the advertising would say - come and spend "Family shopping Day" with us as the Warehouse!

Perhaps rather than changing the name how about from this year no more presents? A bit extreme but think about it - no more Christmas shopping, no more wrapping, no straight-to-landfill crap just to have bought something, and no more Boxing Day queuing at the mall. Just family, food, friends, and fun times.

I do appreciate that some folks no doubt enjoy their Boxing Day mall experience - all power to them, it is just not something that appeals to me.

Think about it though - no more shopping. Doesn’t that sound joyous? No frantic mission to the mall, the terrible piped Christmas music that causes the retail staff to have nightmares - and you to definitely start cheering for the Red Baron so you don’t have to listen to that bloody song again.

“What about the kiddies?”, you say. Excellent, now you’re getting into the spirit of things, we should be worried about them. If we stop pumping them full of advertising for whatever garbage the sales and marketing people have decided is the must-have gift that year they’ll be just fine.

“Oh, you’re serious?” OK then how about just gifts for kids under 12. It’s not a hard and fast number if your kid is a bit, whatever the acceptable term is these days for “slow”, then by all means go another few years. And if they’re, for want of a better term, “fast”, and they say “look Dad, this Santa thing isn’t real we know you and mum buy the presents - can we just have the cash instead?” and they’re eight - then your work is done.

How on earth has a day that was about the wealthy recognising and rewarding the poor for over a millennium become a day of consumerism where big businesses, and it’s not your locally owned shops - those people are taking a well earned break, it is all the large chains, compel people to spend their holiday at the mall?

Really I’m not anti Boxing Day at all, I think it is a great tradition. But it’d be a lot better if we’d keep prices and shopping hours the same until New Year and leave people to spend this time with their families somewhere other than the mall.

Have a lovely day whether you’re seeing friends, chilling at home, maybe at the beach, or yes - even at the mall.

Bah Humbug.