So, there I was sitting in The Hague at Tony's and Catherine's house on Boxing day when it dawned on me that I actually had no clue what Boxing Day was all about!

Where does the name come from and how did it start? Does everybody celebrate Boxing Day? I know that in Belgium this day is like any other and is a normal working day.

So, I did a little research and this is what I found:

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Boxing Day

Despite the lively images suggested by the name, it has nothing to do with pugilistic expositions between tanked-up family members who have dearly been looking forward to taking a round out of each other for the past year. Likewise, it does not gain its name from the overpowering need to rid the house of an excess of wrappings and mountains of now useless cardboard boxes the day after St. Nick arrived to turn a perfectly charming and orderly home into a maelstrom of discarded tissue paper.

The name also has nothing to do with returning unwanted gifts to the stores they came from, hence its common association with hauling about boxes on the day after Christmas.

The holiday's roots can be traced to Britain, where Boxing Day is also known as St. Stephen's Day. Reduced to the simplest essence, its origins are found in a long-ago practice of giving cash or durable goods to those of the lower classes. Gifts among equals were exchanged on or before Christmas Day, but beneficences to those less fortunate were bestowed the day after.

And that's about as much as anyone can definitively say about its origin because once you step beyond that point, it's straight into the quagmire of debated claims and duelling folklorists. Which, by the way, is what we're about to muddy our boots with.
Although there is general agreement that the holiday is of British origin and it has to do with giving presents to the less fortunate, there is still dispute as to how the name came about or precisely what unequal relationship is being recognized.

At various times, the following "origins" have been loudly asserted as the correct one:

• Boxing Day is the following day after Christmas Day. The name goes back to medieval times, more than 800 years ago, when alms boxes were placed at the back of every church to collect money for the poor. Traditionally, it is on this day that the alms box at every English church is opened and the contents are distributed to the poor.
  Historians say the holiday developed because servants were required to work on Christmas Day, but took the following day off.
  As servants prepared to leave to visit their families, their employers would present them with Christmas boxes.
  These Christmas boxes were made from clay and were not made in the shape of a box. They were hollow clay balls with a slit in the top.
  During the late 18th century, Lords and Ladies of the manor would "box up" their leftover food, or sometimes gifts and distribute them the day after Christmas to tenants who lived and worked on their lands.
  The tradition of giving money still continues today. It is customary for householders to give small gifts or monetary tips to regular visiting trades people (the milkman, dustman, coalman, paper boy etc.) and, in some work places, for employers to give a Christmas bonus to employees.

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• Centuries ago, ordinary members of the merchant class gave boxes of food and fruit to tradespeople and servants the day after Christmas in an ancient form of Yuletide tip.
  These gifts were an expression of gratitude to those who worked for them, in much the same way that one now tips the paperboy an extra $20 at Christmastime or slips the building's superintendent a bottle of fine whisky.
  Those long-ago gifts were done up in boxes, hence the day coming to be known as "Boxing Day."

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• Christmas celebrations in the old days entailed bringing everyone together from all over a large estate, thus creating one of the rare instances when everyone could be found in one place at one time.
  This gathering of his extended family, so to speak, presented the lord of the manor with a ready-made opportunity to easily hand out that year's stipend of necessities. Thus, the day after Christmas, after all the partying was over and it was almost time to go back to far-flung homesteads, serfs were presented with their annual allotment of practical goods.
  Who got what was determined by the status of the worker and his relative family size, with spun cloth, leather goods, durable food supplies, tools, and whatnot being handed out. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obligated to supply these goods.
  The items were chucked into boxes, one box for each family, to make carrying away the results of this annual restocking easier; thus, the day came to be known as "Boxing Day."

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• Many years ago, on the day after Christmas, servants in Britain carried boxes to their masters when they arrived for the day's work. It was a tradition that on this day all employers would put coins in the boxes as a special end-of-the-year gift.
  In a closely-related version of this explanation, apprentices and servants would on that day get to smash open small earthenware boxes left for them by their masters. These boxes would house small sums of money specifically left for them.

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• This dual-versioned theory melds the two previous ones together into a new form — namely, the employer who was obligated to hand out something on Boxing Day, but this time to recipients who were not working the land for him and thus were not dependent on him for all they wore and ate. The "box" thus becomes something beyond ordinary compensation (in a way goods to landed serfs was not), yet it's also not a gift in that there's nothing voluntary about it.
  Under this theory, the boxes are an early form of Christmas bonus, something employees see as their entitlement.

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• Boxes in churches for seasonal donations to the needy were opened on Christmas Day, and the contents distributed by the clergy the following day.
  The contents of this alms box originated with the ordinary folks in the parish who were under no direct obligation to provide anything at all and were certainly not tied to the recipients by a employer/employee relationship.
  In this case, the "box" in "Boxing Day" comes from that one gigantic lockbox the donations were left in.

More elaborate versions of this origin involve boxes kept on sailing ships:

The title has been derived by some, from the box which was kept on board of every vessel that sailed upon a distant voyage, for the reception of donations to the priest — who, in return, was expected to offer masses for the safety of the expedition, to the particular saint having charge of the ship — and above all, of the box.
The box was not to be opened until the return of the vessel; and we can conceive that, in cases where the mariners had had a perilous time of it, this casket would be found to enclose a tolerable offering.

The mass was at that time called Christmass, and the boxes kept to pay for it were, of course, called Christmass-boxes.
The poor, amongst those who had an interest in the fate of these ships, or of those who sailed in them, were in the habit of begging money from the rich, that they might contribute to the mass boxes; and hence the title which has descended to our day, giving to the anniversary of St Stephen's martyrdom the title of Christmas-boxing day, and, by corruption, its present popular one of Boxing Day.

Whichever theory one chooses to back, the one thread common to all is the theme of one-way provision to those not inhabiting the same social level. As mentioned previously, equals exchanged gifts on Christmas Day or before, but lessers (be they tradespeople, employees, servants, serfs, or the generic "poor") received their "boxes" on the day after.
It is to be noted that the social superiors did not receive anything back from those they played Lord Bountiful to: a gift in return would have been seen as a presumptuous act of laying claim to equality, the very thing Boxing Day was an entrenched bastion against. Boxing Day was, after all, about preserving class lines.

Since March last year we asked people to write in to us and tell us about something unusual that they had taken with them from South Africa when they moved overseas.
We did not get as many entries as we expected but some were really unusual. From a boat mast to a bowl of pebbles or flower petals to 20 fishing rods and a Bidizzo!

We promised the person who sent us the most unusual entry one of our Rockey's 5kg Home Biltong makers.

The winning entry is not only because it is unusual but also because the person who sent it is, in our opinion the most determined and caring of all.

Therefore the Home Biltong Maker will go to Gavin van Heusden from Durban in South Africa.

Here is his story:

After eight years of living in the UK it was time to return home to South Africa. Leaving as a bachelor in 1997 I was returning a married man and my wonderful wife was expecting at the time!! This is where the plant in my life (Henry) comes into the story.
Before meeting my wife to be (April 1999) I moved to Windsor, it was late 1997 and there on the dining room table was this rather sickly plant. After adopting it and nursing it back to health it followed me from house to house, which included 3 moves over 7 years. Now this is one hardy little plant which has gone for 4 weeks at a time without water (on a number of occasions) and by all means should have gone back to dust a good few times.

After deciding it was time we go back to our roots in South Africa the BIG MOVE got under way in November 2004. After everything was moved and all our suitcases for the last two weeks stay were packed and booted I was walking out the door for the final time with Henry in my arms. He was to be given to my cousin for safe keeping. This I believe was preoccupying me, and low and behold my jacket got caught on the door handle as I was walking through. I stumbled, found the lip of the step, slipped and launched into the air……trying to get my balance meant letting go! Watching the pot tumble through the air in slow motion was sickening but at the same time it felt like a fitting end for my plant.

One smashed pot later, and a plant that had snapped at the root system and leaf system I was cleaning up the mess before the new owners moved in. I actually found a few leaves still joined together and thought I would drop them in some water and see what happens. Well, what did I expect, after a few days there were a few roots off the bottom of the leaves. On the day of leaving we wrapped him in wet cotton wool and stuffed him into my golf bag. Expectations of survival were highly based on past performance and as expected we now have Henry on our balcony looking healthier than ever before.

I dragged a doomed plant, which I have known longer than my wife all the way across the world!!

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Congratulations Gavin. Your Biltong Maker will be on its way shortly!