Boxing Day Bank Holiday 2012

St Stephen's Day
26 December is the feast of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and is known as St Stephen's Day across much of Europe. In Britain the older church name has been almost entirely displaced by Boxing Day.

Where the name comes from
The Oxford English Dictionary records the term from 1743. It refers to the Christmas box: the gratuity that tradespeople, servants and delivery workers received from customers and employers on the day after Christmas. Alms boxes in churches were opened and distributed at the same time.

One of the original four
Boxing Day was named in the Bank Holidays Act 1871 as one of the four bank holidays for England, Wales and Ireland. Scotland did not adopt it until 1974, part of the same slow shift that brought Christmas Day north in 1958.

Sport and sales
The Boxing Day football programme is the busiest day of the English league season, and racing at Kempton Park holds the King George VI Chase. The winter sales, once a January affair, now open on the day itself, and coastal towns hold Boxing Day dips in the sea.

Substitute days
Because it is fixed to 26 December, the bank holiday moves to a weekday when the date falls at the weekend. If Boxing Day is a Saturday, its substitute day is Monday 28 December. If it is a Sunday, Christmas Day has fallen on the Saturday, so both move: Christmas Day to Monday 27 December and Boxing Day to Tuesday 28 December.

UK bank holidays 2012