BOXING DAY

And today (Boxing Day) is the day that the privileged members of the Victorian Bourgeoisie traditionally shared year-end gifts of appreciation with their servants. It's a tradition that survives today, at least here in the US, principally in the form of tips to the paperboy and the doorman, or maybe one's hairdresser, or gardener, or anyone else who provides a personal service. According to Wikipedia, its origins are ultimately found in the Roman tradition of the Saturnalia, a week-long year-end revel where slaves and masters reversed their roles, and large amounts of alcohol were consumed by all.

In the 19th century Frederick Douglass wrote bitterly about how the "holiday" between Christmas and the New Year was used by white slaveholders to degrade African American slaves - first by encouraging widespread drunkenness, and then pointing to the same as "evidence" that slaves were simply not capable of managing what little freedom they were allowed. The modern day African American holiday of Kwanzaa emphasizes the exact opposite values, and especially a reaffirmation of "the communitarian vision and values of African culture and...its restoration among African peoples in the Diaspora, beginning with Africans in America and expanding to include the world African community."

Personally, I still feel a great deal of ambivalence about what to think or do about these awkward seven days that mark the transition from one calendar year to the next, and separate the first half of the church Program Year from the last. I'm glad for the rest, but panicked by expectations, and worried about things I can't control, and will never be able to control But I'm also intrigued by the idea of a seven day holiday that begins with a Celebration of Unity, and ends with a Day of Assessment, and in between lifts up the communitarian values of cooperative effort, shared enterprise, creativity, and self-determination. But mostly I think I just like the colored candles.

from the Official Kwanzaa Website, www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org