Boxing Day

Today we observe Boxing Day–and I don’t mean we’re watching a fight on HBO.  It’s a holiday in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and parts of Canada.  People debate the details surrounding the tradition, but most agree it began in England.

I spent a few of my earliest years in England, where my family had the good fortune of knowing a wonderful woman we called Nanny Blake.  I remember pressing my face into her apron for a hug.   She had a warm laugh and a cockney accent.  I loved to hear her speak.  “I rode me bycicle today,” she would say. “I must change out of me britches.”

Of course Nanny Blake knew all about Boxing Day.  Centuries ago, the wealthy landowners gave boxes of food and fruit to servants and tradespeople on the day after Christmas.  You might say Boxing Day was a big tip day.  Nanny Blake laughed about earning her box the night of big party being given by my parents.

We lived in an old estate named Littledown in Andover, south of London.  The estate was bordered by a sprawling cow pasture.   Two hours before my mother’s big dinner party, the cows found a hole in the fence and circled the house like wagons.  They were grazing–and making cow pies–like they were trying to break a record.

Nanny Blake summoned Mr. Blake, who fetched the landowner and his men to collect the cows.  Then they all set about shoveling those fresh cow pies away from the house before the guests arrived.  Inside the house, Nanny Blake kept my mother calm and helped her with the final preparations.    When the guests arrived, no one was the wiser.

I thought it was terribly exciting.  From then on, we all howled when Nanny Blake told the story.  She told it the best.  She would say, “Remember me on Boxing Day, dear!”