26 节礼日 Boxing Day

I think Boxing Day is confusing for people who don’t know much about Christmas. It is a strange name for a holiday. I bet many people think it is a time when people have a fight and punch each other. Well, it’s quite a bit different than that. Boxing Day started hundreds of years ago as a way of helping poorer people at Christmas. Shopkeepers and craftsmen used to put a special Christmas box in their store or workshop. Customers and visitors would put money into the box. On the day after Christmas Day, which is December 26th, the shopkeeper emptied the box and shared the money with his workers. So that’s how Boxing Day started. This tradition kind of continues today. Many companies give their workers a Christmas bonus.

I’ve always liked Boxing Day. It’s kind of the same as Christmas Day. It has a nice feel about it and we get to eat Christmas dinner all over again. There are also lots of good programmes and movies on TV. For children, it’s another day to play with all their new toys; and for adults, it’s another day off work – at least in countries where Boxing Day is a national holiday. The biggest difference for me between the two days is that there are no more presents to open on Boxing Day. There is a lot of sport on Boxing Day so many people go to watch a football match or game of rugby. And if you don’t like sport, there are always the Boxing Day sales. You can go shopping and buy all of the things you wanted for Christmas but didn’t get!

节礼日（Boxing Day），为每年的12月26日，圣诞节次日或是圣诞节后的第一个星期日，是在英联邦部分地区庆祝的节日，一些欧洲国家也将其定为节日，叫做“圣士提反日”。这一日传统上向服务业工人要赠送圣诞节礼物。