Boxing Day is a bank and public holiday in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Greenland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Jamaica and countries in the Commonwealth of Nations with a mainly Christian population. In South Africa this public holiday is now known as the Day of Goodwill. Though it is not an official holiday in the United States, the name "Boxing Day" for the day after Christmas has some currency among Americans, particularly those that live near the Canada – United States border. Boxing day was traditionally a day the servants had a day off from their duties. Because of this the gentry would eat cold cuts and have a buffet style feast prepared by the servants in advance. In modern times many families will still follow this tradition by eating a family style buffet lunch, with cold cuts rather than a full cooked meal. It is a time for family, parlour games and sports in the UK. The traditional recorded celebration of Boxing Day has long included giving money and other gifts to boxing organizers, who were needy and in service positions. The European tradition has been dated to the Middle Ages, but the exact origin is unknown and there are some claims that it goes back to the late Roman/early Christian era; metal boxes were placed outside churches used to collect special offerings tied to the Feast of Saint Stephen.[1] In the United Kingdom it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their "Christmas boxes" or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year on the day after Christmas.[2] The exact etymology of the term "Boxing" is unclear, with several competing theories, none of which are clearly true.[3] The establishment of Boxing Day as a defined public holiday under the legislation that created the UK's Bank Holidays started the separation of 'Boxing Day' from the 'Feast of St Stephen' and today it is almost entirely a secular holiday with a tradition of shopping and post Christmas sales starting. ohhhh now i understand it lol we also have it here im from denmark but here we call it 2 christmas day it was there because i was a littel confuse i never hat seen the name boxing day before but here in denmark 1 and 2 christmas day is near the same and both day is day were the familie take on wisith to eat but today i thing many famili in denmark do this the hole christmas week when the perrens not work but when they work they do it most at the 1 and 2 chrstmas day because there they have holidays and the same at 1 january they also have a holiday so there some people take to new year wisit to the family hope some one understnad what i meen with this here but im not so good to english hello , your English is very good , i totaly understand what you are saying, in Canada we call it boxing day that's when we see all our friends that we didn't get to see on Christmas day