Boxing Day Returns

This morning, the day after Christmas, as I boiled water for breakfast oatmeal, the Wall Street Journal arrived with a page one article mentioning a Victorian tradition I grew up with called Boxing Day. My Canadian mother and my Jamaican father, and millions throughout the former British Commonwealth, set aside the day after Christmas to box up (as the day’s name suggestions) leftover food and other items for the less fortunate. One LWR colleague, Joanne Fairley, who grew up in Australia, has experiences similar to mine. Our chats over the years about similar imperial childhoods—though separated by thousands of miles—along with today’s WSJ article prompt good memories for me.

Nowadays, the day after Christmas is reserved by many for returning gifts, taking back less desirable, duplicate or non-fitting merchandise for refunds or exchanges. Today as I write from the safety of home, my thoughts go to those braver ones than I who face frazzled clerks at hectic malls to get in on hot holiday sales. Not that commerce and compassion are necessarily mutually exclusive, but often mercantilism trumps humanitarianism.

Five years ago today, the South-Asian Tsunami destroyed the lives of millions. Moved by the love of Christ, it also launched an unprecedented response of post-Christmas giving to Lutheran World Relief. That same Joanne Fairley is the regional director, overseeing the intensive program that channels the financial contributions of U.S. Lutherans and others, investing them in the on-going rebuilding of the impacted communities of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Indian.

No wants to see a return of a Tsunami, but I have visited LWR’s work and I know that these communities are better prepared for what will be an inevitable next big wave. (For more information on LWR's tsunami-related work, see: www.lwr.org/tsunami ) Neither do I, who bear proudly a postcolonial worldview, wish to see a return of the British Empire, but the return of some Boxing Day charity strikes me as more than sentimentalism. It would be one small way to make this busy world a better place.