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This Boxing Day trivia quiz has 49 free questions with answers and covers the day after Christmas from every angle: where the name came from (alms boxes, Christmas boxes and Pepys's diary), the 1871 Act that made it a bank holiday, Saint Stephen and the Wren Day parades of Ireland and the Isle of Man, Good King Wenceslas, and how the day is kept from South Africa's Day of Goodwill to Bermuda's Gombeys. There is a full round on Boxing Day sport, from Premier League derbies and the MCG Test to the Sydney to Hobart, the King George VI Chase and the World Juniors, plus the sales, the leftovers and the 2004 tsunami. It is written for anyone who has ever wondered why it is called Boxing Day. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer, so it works as a family round on the day itself. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
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Q 01How does the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 define the UK's Boxing Day bank holiday?
As '26th December, if it be not a Sunday'
Schedule 1 of the 1971 Act lists the holiday as '26th December, if it be not a Sunday', substituting 27th December when the 25th or 26th is a Sunday; the Act never uses the name Boxing Day.
Q 02Boxing Day originated in which country?
The United Kingdom
Boxing Day originated in the United Kingdom: giving servants and tradesmen a 'Christmas box' on 26 December was an English custom by the 17th century, and the holiday spread to Commonwealth countries.
Q 03Boxing Day was traditionally a day for doing what?
Giving gifts to the needy and to servants
Boxing Day was traditionally for giving gifts to the needy and to servants: employers handed servants and tradesmen a 'Christmas box' of money or leftovers on 26 December, after they had worked Christmas Day.
Q 04One theory traces the name to what kind of church box opened the day after Christmas?
An alms box for the poor
An alms box for the poor: churches kept an alms box for donations, and one theory says it was opened on 26 December and the contents shared among the poor, giving the day its name.
Q 05Which diarist mentioned tradesmen collecting 'Christmas boxes' in an entry for 19 December 1663?
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys's diary for 19 December 1663 records paying his shoemaker's bill and giving 'something to the boys' box against Christmas', an early note of the Christmas-box custom.
Q 06The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest attestation of 'Boxing Day' dates from which year?
1743
The OED's earliest citation for 'Boxing Day' is from 1743, defining it as the first weekday after Christmas, when postmen, errand boys and servants expected to receive a Christmas box.
Q 07Boxing Day became a bank holiday in England, Wales and Ireland under an Act of which year?
1871
The Bank Holidays Act 1871, promoted by the banker and MP Sir John Lubbock, made 26 December a bank holiday in England, Wales and Ireland; the new holidays were nicknamed 'St Lubbock's Days'.
Q 08Boxing Day usually falls on the feast day of which figure, the first Christian martyr?
Stephen
Stephen was the first Christian martyr, stoned to death around AD 34.
Q 09The martyr whose feast is kept on the day after Christmas held what office in the early Jerusalem church?
Deacon
Acts describes him as one of seven Greek-speaking deacons chosen to distribute food; Saul of Tarsus witnessed his stoning.
Q 10In parts of Ireland and the Isle of Man, the day after Christmas is named for which traditionally hunted bird?
Wren
'Wrenboys' in straw masks paraded the bird on a decorated pole and collected money.
Q 11On Boxing Day 1900, a relief crew found three keepers missing from which Scottish lighthouse?
Flannan Isles
The Flannan Isles lighthouse: when the relief tender Hesperus reached Eilean Mòr on 26 December 1900, keepers James Ducat, Thomas Marshall and Donald MacArthur had vanished, a mystery never solved.
Q 12In the carol 'Good King Wenceslas', what is the king doing on the feast after Christmas?
Taking alms to a poor peasant
The king is taking alms to a poor peasant: seeing a poor man gathering winter fuel, Wenceslas carries meat, wine and pine logs to him, his page treading in his footprints; John Mason Neale wrote the words in 1853.
Q 13The melody of 'Good King Wenceslas' was borrowed from a 13th-century carol about which season?
Q 21In Britain, football fixtures on Boxing Day were originally arranged against which kind of opponent?
Local rivals
Local rivals: Boxing Day fixtures were traditionally local derbies so that players and supporters did not have to travel far the day after Christmas, when public transport was limited.
Q 22Australia's Boxing Day cricket Test is played in which city?
Melbourne
The tradition dates from the 1974-75 Ashes and was formalised by the Australian Cricket Board in 1980.
Q 23The Boxing Day Test's player-of-the-match medal is named after which Indigenous cricketer?
Johnny Mullagh
Mullagh starred on the 1868 Aboriginal tour of England.
Spring
Spring: the tune is the 13th-century spring carol 'Tempus adest floridum' ('The time of flowers is near'), which Neale took from Piae Cantiones, a collection of medieval Latin songs published in 1582.
Q 14Which Australian state does NOT observe Boxing Day, celebrating Proclamation Day instead?
South Australia
South Australia observes Proclamation Day instead: it marks Governor Hindmarsh's proclamation of the Province of South Australia on 28 December 1836 beside the Old Gum Tree at Glenelg.
Q 15What did South Africa rename the 26 December public holiday in 1994?
Day of Goodwill
Day of Goodwill: South Africa's Public Holidays Act of 1994 renamed 26 December the Day of Goodwill, dropping the colonial-era name Boxing Day, with the idea that the Christmas spirit should carry into the next day.
Q 16Which US state officially declared 26 December Boxing Day in 1996, though not a holiday?
Massachusetts
Massachusetts: in 1996 Governor William Weld, urged by British expatriates, designated 26 December as Boxing Day in the state, a recognition only, not a public holiday.
Q 17What is Boxing Day called in French-speaking Canada?
Le Lendemain de Noël
Le Lendemain de Noël ('the day after Christmas') is the French name used in Canada's federal holiday legislation; the day is a federal statutory holiday and a statutory holiday in Ontario.
Q 18Which territory added Boxing Day to its statutory holidays in 2024?
Hong Kong
Hong Kong: under the Employment (Amendment) Ordinance 2021, the first weekday after Christmas Day became a statutory holiday in 2024, part of a phased alignment of statutory and general holidays ending in 2030.
Q 19On the island of Bermuda, which costumed dancers traditionally perform all over the island on Boxing Day?
Gombeys
The Gombeys: Bermuda's masked, brightly costumed Gombey troupes dance through the island on Boxing Day, a tradition traced to enslaved people being allowed to gather and celebrate at Christmas in the 18th century.
Q 20Junkanoo, the masquerade parade held around Boxing Day, is most associated with which countries?
The Bahamas and Jamaica
The Bahamas and Jamaica: Junkanoo's biggest parades fill Nassau on Boxing Day and New Year's Day, and Jamaica's Jonkonnu masquerade shares the tradition, which began among enslaved people in British colonies.
Q 24Which famous yacht race starts on Boxing Day each year?
Sydney to Hobart
The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, about 630 nautical miles down the New South Wales coast and across Bass Strait to Tasmania, has started on Boxing Day since its first running in 1945.
Q 25The Boxing Day yacht race of which year ended in tragedy, with five boats sunk and six sailors dead?
1998
1998: that year's Sydney to Hobart met a Bass Strait storm; six sailors died, five yachts sank and only 44 of 115 starters reached Hobart, after which crew experience rules were tightened.
Q 26Britain's most prestigious Boxing Day horse race, the King George VI Chase, is run at which course?
Kempton Park
Kempton Park in Surrey stages the King George VI Chase; first run there in February 1937, the race moved to Boxing Day when it resumed after the war in 1947.
Q 27Which horse won the King George VI Chase five times between 2006 and 2011?
Kauto Star
Kauto Star won the King George VI Chase five times, in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011, beating Desert Orchid's previous best of four wins.
Q 28Which 2004 law banned chasing foxes with dogs in England and Wales?
The Hunting Act
The Hunting Act 2004 banned hunting wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales from 18 February 2005; Boxing Day hunts continued as trail hunts following an artificial scent.
Q 29Which under-20 ice hockey tournament traditionally opens on Boxing Day and runs into early January?
The IIHF World Juniors
It has an outsized following in Canada, dating from the era when it was a rare chance to face Soviet Bloc players.
Q 30The Spengler Cup, which starts on Boxing Day, is played in which Swiss town?
Davos
Davos: HC Davos has hosted the Spengler Cup since it began in 1923, and it is often cited as the world's oldest invitational ice hockey tournament.