Boxing Day History and Lesson Plans
The Day After Christmas, Boxing Day Can Teach Social Skills
Nov 17, 2008
Families celebrating Boxing Day in Canada often fill their empty boxes with gifts to donate to the poor. This holiday, however, has charitable roots dating back to the middle ages. Learn the history of Boxing Day and help kids participate in a tradition of giving.
Boxing Day History
In the middle ages, a clay Christmas Box was often kept by landlords and merchants, as sort of a piggy bank. When Christmas came, the box would be cracked open and distributed among the staff, like a Christmas bonus. Churches would break open their Christmas box to provide meals for the poor.
Homeschooling families can continue the practice by keeping a Christmas box to be used to buy gifts for a family in need, to deliver food to others, or to donate to a charity. The importance of saving for a rainy day can be reinforced by keeping a household Christmas box and splitting it between the children, so that they can buy gifts for one another.
Teaching Social Skills
A newer Boxing Day tradition is that of filling empty boxes with donations to the poor. This solves a major home management issue of dealing with clutter and the accumulation of excessive amounts of toys. Children are often very generous when it comes to donating their toys to children who might not have gotten any. In a consumer culture, it's important to seize every opportunity to find joy in giving, sharing and generosity.
Boxing Day Lesson Plans
Children studying the middle ages in history lessons can add the Christmas Box practice into their lesson plans very easily. In math, students can estimate the amount of money that would be in a Christmas box if they were to contribute 10% of their allowance. Likewise, they can figure out how much of their allowance they would need to save in order to reach a certain dollar amount. Older students can factor in the additional option of using a savings account, to see how much interest would be generated by each month's balance if they were to save it in a bank instead of in a box. Have students research charitable giving practices in non-Christian cultures. Writing letters to friends and family urging them to participate in Boxing Day the day after Christmas can be the start of a great Homeschool community service project.
The Day After Christmas
Whether your December holiday traditions involve breaking open a clay box to help others, Shopping 'till you drop at the Boxing Day sales or filling up empty boxes for charity, the day after Christmas is usually a life-learning day and even the most strict of homeschool families don't often crack the books. Learning never ends, even the day after Christmas.
