Happy Boxing Day

What is Boxing Day, and why do Canadians celebrate it?

Every year Boxing Day is a holiday, a post-Christmas recovery for some, a chance to self shop for gifts at massive discount pieces for others.

Observed annually on December 26 in Canada, the U.K. and Commonwealth countries around the world, Boxing Day was traditionally the day employers would give their staff Christmas presents, called "boxes," to celebrate the season. 

There's no exact definition of Boxing Day, though some tie it to British servants who helped their lords and ladies with Christmas dinner and literally took home boxes (and got a day off) the next day. Samuel Pepys noted the existence of such boxes in his diary in 1663.

In Canada, as well as the U.K. and Australia, December 26 is now better known as a day for scooping up shopping deals, similar to Black Friday in the U.S. Most stores open their doors early and discount prices on items ranging from clothing to technology to appliances. In recent years, some shops have started their sales even before Christmas has begun, hoping for more spending from customers.

In other countries, December 26 has taken on a different name. In Germany, Poland, Scandinavia and the Netherlands, it's known as Second Christmas Day, simply extending the holiday for an extra day. In Ireland, they celebrate St. Stephen's Day, or the Day of the Wren, participating in parades in masks and suits.

But in modern times the day after Christmas is now usually a statutory holiday and the concept of servants is all but gone. As a result, as the Huffington Post notes, we now often give those 'boxes' to ourselves.

What ever it is you are doing today, Happy Boxing Day.

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Boxing Day

Ahh... Boxing Day evening.

Every year, for your faithful scribe, the pre-Christmas rush gives way to the post-Christmas wind-down.

Not being too enamoured with frenzy of the Boxing Week sales, this period between Christmas and New Year's is leisure time for me.

But news stories today are filled with reports of the post-Christmas commercial frenzy... and with the tremendous success of those sales.

Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations represent more than one-third of annual sales for retailers. It is the reason why we are bombarded with relentless advertisements for all that glitters from Halloween until New Year's.

And it has grown.

In what seems like a horrendous, natural progression, the ad blitz seemed to pass right through Christmas this year.

In year's past it seemed we would at least get a reprieve Christmas Eve until Christmas night.

No longer.

The on-line revolution now means 'Boxing Day' sales stated as early as 8:00pm Christmas Eve, the consumption orgy now never-ending.

Curiously, an interesting statistic is coming out.

You may recall the media trumpeting how the shopping orgy known as Black Friday (the day after American Thanksgiving) was a success and a great kick-off to the holiday shopping season.

The media was telling us how Black Friday and Cyber Monday broke new records as online sales exploded.

The fanaticism and fervor of this year’s Black Friday did not disappoint. There was hair tugging at the Wii U display in Target, a shooting outside of Wal-Mart and long lines as consumers nationwide waited to bust down the doors the day after Thanksgiving.

But while Black Friday did not disappoint, the even bigger success story here is that of Cyber Monday’s explosive sales growth in light of a quickly evolving retail landscape. This analysis puts together the numbers behind both major sales dates, comparing traditional versus online shopping, to find 3 key takeaways:

• Black Friday 2012 outperformed the past 5 years in stock market performance, while Cyber Monday 2012 was likely the busiest ecommerce day in history;
• Traditional shoppers became more tech savvy consumers this year both online and in stores, with in-person shoppers using both apps and smartphones to try to secure better deals;  
• Online shopping exploded on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, seeing higher conversion rates this year.

But was it as successful as first reported?

Seems the holiday shopping season was actually a huge bust as the Globe and Mail reports that U.S. retailers recorded the worst holiday season since 2008.

The 2012 holiday season may have been the worst for retailers since the financial crisis, with sales growth far below expectations, forcing many to offer massive post-Christmas discounts in hopes of shedding excess inventory.

It's almost as if the media regurgitates retail hype in hopes of building consumer confidence to encourage economic spending.

Sound familiar?

It's the exact complaint many bearish blogs have about the cosy relationship between media and the real estate industry.

You almost expect some PR rep or economist working for the local Chamber of Commerce to come out and correct those negative news stories with an analysis that says: "sales aren't below expectations... they're just flatlining."

In Canada, our Black Friday is the Boxing Day sale.

As we watch the news tonight about the huge the success experienced by cramped stores across the nation today... I wonder what retail reports several weeks from now will tell us?

With record levels of personal debt in Canada, will the orgy prove not to be quite the success being portrayed in the media tonight?

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Email: village_whisperer@live.ca
Click 'comments' below to contribute to this post.

Please read disclaimer at bottom of blog.