After you have opened all the presents and eaten your fill, what do you do? Are you done with Christmas for another year? Not so quick! Today is Boxing Day. I always observe it by saying "Today is Boxing Day", but in England, December 26 has a long history. Here is a bit about Boxing Day customs from the British newspaper, The Telegraph:
According to some Boxing Day can be traced back to the Victorian era when churches often displayed a box into which their parishioners put donations.
Also in Britain, on the day after Christmas Day, servants of the wealthy were given time off to visit their families because their services were required for the Christmas Day celebrations of their employers.
They were therefore allowed the following day for their own observance of the holiday and each servant would be handed a box to take home, containing gifts, bonuses and sometimes leftover food.
It was also customary for tradespeople to collect 'Christmas boxes' of presents or money on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year.
December 26th is also the feast day of Saint Stephen, the patron saint of horses, which is why Boxing Day has come to be associated with horse racing and fox hunting.
Samuel Pepys mentions the practice in a diary entry from December 19th 1663: "Thence by coach to my shoemaker’s and paid all there, and gave something to the boys’ box against Christmas."
There are also Boxing Day sales, of course!
Then we have the twelve days of Christmas, ending on January 6 (Epiphany) when the three wise men turn up at the manger. Don't be in a hurry to take down your Christmas lights or they may not be able to find their way!
This is a good time to pause. We are done with the hustle and bustle of the holiday. The new year hasn't started. Many people have the week off from work. Children are home from school. You can choose to pause.
Take Sabbath time. I have to be intentional about carving out that Sabbath time. Nature does it naturally. Days are shorter, nights are longer. Many animals hibernate and plants are dormant. Everything slows down, becomes quieter.
A friend told me about going to a coffee house to "pause". She sat in a comfortable chair by the fireplace. She looked at the flickering flames of the fire. She held the warm cup of coffee. She inhaled the scent of coffee. She tasted mint, coffee, chocolate. She let all the sounds around her fade into the background. She was quiet. She paused.
Make this a quiet week. Unplug. Be slow. Give the kids an art project to do, games to play. Take walks. Have a cup of coffee or tea or cocoa. If you are working this week, give yourself time to pause - maybe in a coffee house.
This is my last article. I guess that I will have a lot of time to pause now, but oh, how I will miss writing the Library Blog! I don't know how long the Library Blog will stay on the website, but I would like to think that those of you who look forward to reading it every Monday will just start over again with the oldest article! And always, keep checking out books and exploring all that Plymouth Library holds for you.
Thank you for being a faithful reader ~
Suzanne