-By Jozette Kauffman, BWB US Customer
For those of you living on my side of the pond, Boxing Day is a holiday neither well understood nor widely celebrated. What do we Americans know of this elusive post-Christmas holiday? Before conducting a little Internet research of my own, it was my misinformed belief that Boxing Day involved some sort of pugilistic competition between two sweaty British men dressed in spandex. Or that, by December 26, people’s holiday spirit has worn off and the true irritation of spending days of uninterrupted “quality time” with members of your family leads to post-Trivial Pursuit fisticuffs.
In reality Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday for those living in the UK and other commonwealth nations like Canada and Australia. It’s the equivalent of our American Black Friday, except that Boxing Day is a statutory holiday, where Black Friday is not (get with the program, America!) Stores offer post-holiday sales and eager consumers start lining up before the stores even open (except in Britain they ‘queue’).
The origins of Boxing Day are quite unknown although several theories attempt to explain how this holiday came to be. One such theory accounts that churches had boxes for seasonal donations where parishioners could give money. The alms boxes were then opened the day after Christmas and the donations were distributed among the poor. Several other theories exist along the same theme – gifts were given to workers or those less fortunate, always the day after Christmas, putting their pounds (pence? shillings? farthings?) to great use.
And did you know that when you buy from Better World Books, a portion of that money is also put to great use? Every sale contributes to literacy initiatives around the world. So if you are going to spend your dollars (or pounds!) in a post-holiday consumeristic frenzy, why not spend it with a company who will donate a portion of that money to help someone else? It’s the Boxing Day way.
So in celebration of Boxing Day, and the launch of the Better World Books UK website, BWB is having a sale: 15% off of two (2) or more books. Just use the code BOXING4BOOKS at checkout. (You’re welcome.)