IrishCanadian25
Going on 10 years with WrestleZone
Remember folks, Boxing Day is December 25th, so I decided to post this thread to educate all of you on this wonderous holiday and give you all the opportunity to ask questions and send out Boxing Day wishes.
How Much do you REALLY know about Canadian Boxing Day?
In Canada, Boxing Day is observed as a holiday, except (in some cases) for those in the retail business. Boxing Day and the days immediately following are when many retail stores sell their Christmas and retired model products by holding clearance sales. Some shoppers will line up for hours at night (sometimes before midnight and after midnight on December 26) for retailers to open their doors. Except in Quebec, retailers often open their stores earlier than usual, such as 6 or 7 am. Some retail companies internally refer to the sales week after Christmas as the "thirteenth month." (See Boxing Week.) It is similar to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in the United States. Boxing Day 2005 was the single largest economic transaction day ever in the history of Canadian commerce (according to Visa). Individual big box stores can even gross over CAD$1,000,000 on one single Boxing Day.
As an exception, most retail stores are not permitted to open on Boxing Day in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2006, Nova Scotia eliminated a similar ban on Boxing Day openings, although most retailers elected to continue past practice and remain closed that day. In these provinces, most stores offer the same specials on December 27 that they would offer elsewhere on the 26th. This distinction is not well known in central and western Canada.[10]
In addition to the retail aspect of the holiday, Boxing Day also serves, in English-speaking parts of the country, as a second day for families to gather for dinner and to exchange gifts. Boxing Day dinner is, in many ways, just as much a part of many families traditions as Christmas dinner itself.[citation needed]
Boxing Day has also been referred to as the day that people "box" up their Christmas decorations and put them away until next year.
Sport
From a sporting perspective, Boxing Day in Canada has many implications. It is usually on Boxing Day when the IIHF begins the World Junior Hockey Championship. This is a significant event for Canada and Hockey Canada which have done extremely well at this particular international event. Boxing Day is also the start of another international hockey tournament: The Spengler Cup. This tournament, usually played in Davos, Switzerland, along with the World Juniors, are aired on the two big sports networks in Canada (TSN and Rogers Sportsnet).
