Hola Don!

We don't think it is the White House! We wonder whether it might be the Congress or Senate building? Oh dear our ignorance is showing again! Please keep on trying to educate us in all things American Don.!

Hasta la vista Gillian

Hi

It's the United States Capitol building on Capitol Hill, it where Congress sits.
Don, don't you have boxing day in the states?

Jean

Hi,

Yes, this is the US Capital Building. The Senate chamber is to the left and the House of Representatives is on the right side - in back of the trees (note, right and left are due to the location of the photographer )

Jean, we do not have Boxing Day. December 26 is a normal workday. Many folks (those who can) will take that day off. As I understand it, Boxing Day was the day gentry would give gifts and the day off to those in "service". Is this right?

Hi Don
Yes that's right.

Here are a few theories as to the origins of Boxing Day I found on Google.

• It was the day when people would give a present or Christmas box to those who had worked for them throughout the year. This is still done in Britain for postmen and paper-boys - though now the 'box' is usually given before Christmas, not after.
  

• In feudal times, Christmas was a reason for a gathering of extended families. All the serfs would gather their families in the manor of their lord, which made it easier for the lord of the estate to hand out annual stipends to the serfs. After all the Christmas parties on 26 December, the lord of the estate would give practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land. Each family would get a box full of such goods the day after Christmas. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obliged to supply these goods. Because of the boxes being given out, the day was called Boxing Day.
  

• In England many years ago, it was common practice for the servants to carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day's work on the day after Christmas. Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts. This can be compared with the modern day concept of Christmas bonuses. The servants carried boxes for the coins, hence the name Boxing Day.
  

• In churches, it was traditional to open the church's donation box on Christmas Day, and the money in the donation box was to be distributed to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day. In this case, the "box" in "Boxing Day" comes from that lockbox in which the donations were left.
  

• Because the staff had to work on such an important day as Christmas by serving the master of the house and their family, they were given the following day off. As servants were kept away from their own families to work on a traditional religious holiday and were not able to celebrate Christmas Dinner, the customary benefit was to "box" up the leftover food from Christmas Day and send it away with the servants and their families. (Similarly, as the servants had the 26th off, the owners of the manor may have had to serve themselves pre-prepared, boxed food for that one day.) Hence the "boxing" of food became "Boxing Day".
  

Jean[url=][/url]

Hi Don, Gillian & Jean,


Aaaah!! That's interesting!! Thanks for that Jean, I didn't know from where or how the title "boxing" day had originated!! Well what'd'you know!!

And thanks Don for another fabulous photo!! Heck you are a brilliant photographer, aren't you!!?

Chat again over the weekend,

Carole