Happy Sales and Returns Day &c.
While December 26th is celebrated by a lot of people in the US in shopping malls returning gifts or taking advantage of inventory clearance sales, there are other celebrations.
It is the first day of the Kwanzaa celebration, which is explained at the link.
It is Boxing Day, a celebration of noblesse oblige when the upper classes bestow gifts on the lower and the contents of the poor boxes are distributed. Under the feudal system this was part of the “contract,” the mutual system of obligations that tied the system together.
As the feast of St. Stephen it honors the first Christian martyr, but Ireland’s Saint Stephen’s Day celebration is a bit different and is the reason for the wren on this post.
However, this post is really my complaint about “Good King Whatshisface.”
I have always found Good King Wenceslas really annoying.
This is a real guy, although he was the Duke of Bohemia, and not a king, he was a real member of the 10th century aristocracy, and he is the patron saint of the Czech Republic. He is revered as a kind man for the way he treated children and slaves. Apparently owning slaves is fine as long as you don’t kill too many.
His mother had his grandmother, her mother-in-law, strangled, and he forced his mother out at sword point. He sounds more like he was ready for Dr. Phil, than canonization.
So then we get to the song. The song says that on Saint Stephen’s Day, the day after Christmas, he sees one of his peasants out scrounging up fallen limbs to heat his humble hovel, and Wenceslas carries food and a few logs to the peasant’s abode to brighten up the holiday.
At the time commoners weren’t allowed to cut trees for firewood nor hunt, as those were the rights of the aristocracy. They were allowed to pick up dead limbs in the forest to heat their homes. They would have a fire in their shacks and a smoke hole in the roof, not a fireplace, so the logs weren’t going to be useful unless they were split.
On the day after Christmas there were sure to be a lot of leftovers that would go to the kennels, so the “Good King” Wenceslas was carting dog food to a peasant, who was expected to be overcome with gratitude at the beneficence of his Duke.
There is a happy ending: Wenceslas was murdered by his brother’s goons after five years of oppressing the peasants.
The Church felt kindly towards Wenceslas because his mother was rather repressive towards the Church, while he wasn’t, so he became a martyr.
Wenceslas reminds me of all of the people who make a donation so poor people can have a good Christmas dinner, without a thought about what they have to eat the rest of the year.
13 comments
Happy Sales… to you…
Until… we meet… again…
Oh, wait, where was I? Oh, yeah; I was about to note, as I do every year in response to your Wenceslas post, that it’s difficult for me to disapprove of anything that refers to a Feast of Stephen. Boxing Day is a different matter; my uncle wanted to teach me, but the first couple of times I donned gloves, I lived to regret it and vowed not to repeat the experience.
(When I reach this level of silliness, it’s time for me to go to bed…)
It seems the concept of noblesse oblige is dead in the United States, if not on its very last gasps anymore.
Of course, that suits the church just fine, because then they are the only ones doling out any kind of assistance, and their price stunts your alleged soul.
Drink a quart of water and take two aspirins – that takes the edge off. Good night, Steve.
This was always one of the arguments regarding the nouveau riche, that they lacked the sense of duty to society, that privilege had to be countered by obligations. The feudal system was an interlocking web built on the duties of each member to the rest of society.
This is the same lack of obligation that destroys companies. Management that ignores its obligations to workers and customers may have short term profits, but they lose the loyalty of the people necessary for long term prosperity – those that produce and buy the product.
…ok, so it won’t be much fun anymore singing about “Good King Wenceslas”, but that’s alright. I never really liked the song that much anyway. In any event, Merry Christmas et. al. and a Happy Holiday season, Bryan…
It will be just as much fun, Jack, just think of it terms of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, especially Arthur’s encounter with Dennis the Peasant.
Go forth and listen to Elvis Costello sing St. Stephen’s Day Murders……(see my radio.blog)
That was rather medieval.
Check out what the Irish did/do to wrens on St Stephen’s Day on the link in the post.
Ouch. Those wrens really took a bath at the hands of those Irish kids: Lather wrens, repeat…
Just to clarify the Commonwealth tradition of ‘Boxing Day’… it has nothing whatsoever to do with the *sport* of Boxing! 😉
Boxing Day is a public holiday that, historically, was meant to be for employees and citizens of a lower social class. In olden times, a box made out of clay was placed in shops where people visiting them would put in their coin(s). Come the day after Christmas, this “Christmas box” would then be broken to retrieve all the money that’s inside, just like a modern day ceramic piggy bank. Whatever was inside was split amongst all the workers to augment to their basic month’s salary (something like a Christmas bonus).
There are many variations to the tradition of Boxing Day across the Commonwealth Nations and Europe, but the general consensus is that this holiday was meant to give workers and servants some time for rest and relaxation after a busy holiday season. This usually meant giving these individuals the day off as well as some form of monetary compensation (or in some cases, giving them a “box” of whatever leftover food remained from the previous day’s festivities).
So, what do we do in our *modern* society on Boxing Day? We force the underpaid employees to work even harder in the stores by having huge clearance sales! That’s so typical of this modern era. Why give employees a bonus when a capitalist can make them work for it. 🙂
Every year I come to appreciate those immortal words *Bah! Humbug!* more and more. 😉
Ohh, I almost forgot (mainly because this was the first part of the tradition to disappear like a bad memory)…
The Churches in England around 800AD (and later, throughout the Commonwealth) would open their alms boxes (boxes where people place monetary donations in the Church) and distributed the contents to poor in their Parish on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas). The money in the alms box were NEVER intended to be used for any Church business, the money was solely intended to be donated to the poor and needy.
I spent some time whilst a student at University in the huge research library. I spent most of my time studying history and other areas. I read that the origin came from feudal times, where Christmas was a reason for a gathering of extended families. All the serfs would gather their families in the manor of their lord, which made it easier for the lord of the estate to hand out annual stipends to the serfs. After all the Christmas parties on December 26th, the lord of the estate would give practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land. Each family would get a box full of such goods the day after Christmas. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obliged to supply these goods. Because of the boxes being given out, the day was called Boxing Day. 🙂
I notice they used “sexed-up intelligence”, i.e. the wren is the king of birds, to sell their scheme, Steve. Of course if they went after a falcon [F-16] or eagle [F-15] or any other raptor [F-22] they might have shared St. Stephen’s martyrdom.
It’s sort of like being required to march in a Veterans Day parade, or working the Labor Day sales. Kryten.
The Salvation Army kettles is an extension of the Church tradition, but corporations don’t feel any obligation to share the wealth with “the peasants”.
I used to sing that song. I don’t remember the words, now. I guess it’s a good thing. Talking about sales, my mother had to go to town to get some stuff (medicines and some tool type stuff). She stopped, at the edge of the biggest town near her, and gassed up the vehicle. It wouldn’t start. She called me and I, still sick, called a friend who agreed to take a look at the vehicle. I would pick friend up and take over. Luckily, mother called back and said vehicle started, but stay by phone. I called friend back and said nevermind for the time being. I was dreading passing on my flu to her, then she would end up giving it to father. That would have been awful.
There’s nothing wrong with the song, per se, as long as people realize it is fiction, and romanticized fiction at that. Poets and songwriters have always done that, but too many start believing the propaganda.
There are times when I have to wear a mask to visit my Mother because I have a respiratory infection and she has asthma. At her age a cold is not a good thing, and it can lead to an asthma attack which would end up with her in the hospital, something she really hates.