Every year, Box­ing Day ar­rives with fa­mil­iar rit­u­als: the joy­ful noise of chil­dren play­ing with new toys, moth­ers find­ing in­no­v­a­tive ways to fin­ish left­over food, oth­ers emerg­ing from a “food co­ma” to rest and re­cu­per­ate, en­er­getic per­sons ex­tend­ing the Christ­mas lime at the beach, riv­er or friends’ homes, while bar­gain hunters rush out ear­ly to par­tic­i­pate in Box­ing Day sales.

It al­so sig­nals the un­of­fi­cial kick-off to the Car­ni­val sea­son. This British tra­di­tion has cer­tain­ly tak­en on a dis­tinc­tive Trinidad and To­ba­go flavour over the decades.

Box­ing Day orig­i­nat­ed in Britain sev­er­al cen­turies ago. Wealthy house­holds whose ser­vants worked through­out Christ­mas Day gave them time off on De­cem­ber 26 to vis­it their own fam­i­lies. A “Christ­mas box” con­tain­ing used cloth­ing, mon­ey, food or small gifts was pre­sent­ed as a to­ken of ap­pre­ci­a­tion for their ser­vice.

An­oth­er ex­pla­na­tion traces the day to the Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion of Ad­vent, when “alms box­es” were used to col­lect do­na­tions for the poor. These were opened on De­cem­ber 26, which co­in­cid­ed with the Feast of Saint Stephen. In some coun­tries, the sec­ond day of Christ­mas­tide is ob­served as St Stephen’s Day to com­mem­o­rate the pro­tomar­tyr, our first mar­tyr, who was stoned to death by the Jew­ish ad­min­is­tra­tion when he stood up for the vul­ner­a­ble. In Ire­land, Box­ing Day is still wide­ly known as St Stephen’s Day.

To­day, Box­ing Day is ob­served across many Com­mon­wealth coun­tries and is strong­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with sport­ing events such as horse rac­ing, foot­ball and post-Christ­mas sales.

Across the Caribbean and be­yond, the day has evolved in unique ways. In the Ba­hamas, Box­ing Day is cel­e­brat­ed with Junkanoo, which orig­i­nat­ed when an en­slaved African chief de­mand­ed a day of cel­e­bra­tion and free­dom for his peo­ple. In its ear­ly years, slaves coat­ed their faces with flour and wore sim­ple cos­tumes. To­day, Junkanoo fea­tures mag­nif­i­cent cos­tumes and vi­brant car­ni­val street pa­rades.

In Bermu­da, Gombey dancers per­form across the is­land in colour­ful masks and cos­tumes. Once banned by slave mas­ters, en­slaved Africans used masks to gath­er and protest in­jus­tices with­out fear of ret­ri­bu­tion. In Hong Kong and Cana­da, Box­ing Day has be­come a prime op­por­tu­ni­ty to spend hol­i­day gift cards and hunt for bar­gains. In con­trast, Sin­ga­pore dis­con­tin­ued Box­ing Day in 1968 as part of a na­tion­al push to im­prove pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and eco­nom­ic com­pet­i­tive­ness.

The Unit­ed States nev­er for­mal­ly adopt­ed Box­ing Day, hav­ing gained in­de­pen­dence long be­fore the tra­di­tion be­came of­fi­cial in Britain. How­ev­er, this year, US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump de­clared both Christ­mas Eve and Box­ing Day hol­i­days for fed­er­al work­ers.

In Trinidad and To­ba­go, Box­ing Day was tra­di­tion­al­ly a time for re­laxed vis­its to fam­i­ly and friends. Over time, it has evolved in­to an in­for­mal bridge be­tween Christ­mas and Car­ni­val. Even be­fore Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions come down and “Lewah” — the close of the parang sea­son on Jan­u­ary 6 — ar­rives, the sounds of so­ca and ca­lyp­so be­gin to dom­i­nate the air­waves.

This blend­ing of sea­sons is unique­ly T&T. A tra­di­tion with British roots has been re­shaped by our cre­ativ­i­ty, cul­ture and love of cel­e­bra­tion. Yet, Box­ing Day should al­so in­vite re­flec­tion. It should not be re­duced sole­ly to rush­ing for sale items to sat­is­fy ma­te­r­i­al de­sires.

Yes, in dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic times, peo­ple un­der­stand­ably seek bar­gains. But in an in­creas­ing­ly fast-paced and over-com­mer­cialised world, Box­ing Day can still of­fer a mean­ing­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to prac­tise char­i­ty. At its heart, the day speaks to rest af­ter labour, grat­i­tude for ser­vice, gen­eros­i­ty to those in need and the im­por­tance of com­mu­ni­ty.

We can still ho­n­our that spir­it by pack­ing a few box­es — food items, gen­tly used clothes, toys and fur­ni­ture — and shar­ing them with work­ers and less for­tu­nate in­di­vid­u­als. Many would re­call that in 2023, the Self- Em­ployed Women’s As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, un­der the lead­er­ship of its pres­i­dent Re­van Teelucks­ingh, co­or­di­nat­ed the dis­tri­b­u­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4 mil­lion worth of used cloth­ing. Ini­tia­tives like these can eas­i­ly be ex­pand­ed on Box­ing Day to keep the true spir­it of the day alive.

Some of us with hoard­ing ten­den­cies have cloth­ing we will nev­er fit in­to but find it dif­fi­cult to part with. Oth­ers may have tools left be­hind by a de­ceased hus­band. These items can find new life, help­ing to out­fit a young trades­man or sup­port a fam­i­ly in need.

For us, Box­ing Day can al­so be a mo­ment of tran­si­tion, re­flec­tion and re­new­al. May we use the day not on­ly to en­joy our­selves, but to recom­mit to gen­eros­i­ty, kind­ness and uni­ty. If we do so, Box­ing Day can con­tin­ue to evolve with us, car­ry­ing for­ward its char­i­ta­ble tra­di­tions while re­flect­ing who we are as a peo­ple to­day.

I wish all a peace­ful and mean­ing­ful Box­ing Day.