Shillong City Celebrates Boxing Day

Shillong City Celebrates Boxing Day

The ‘Boxing Day’ is a holiday celebrated the day after Christmas Day. It originated in the United Kingdom and is celebrated in a number of countries that had formed part of the British Empire. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the earliest attestations from Britain in the 1830s, defining it as “the first weekday after Christmas day, observed as a holiday on which postmen, errand boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas box”

Staff Correspondent

Shillong: For the layman, Boxing Day (26th December) is a nondescript word, except for those who follows international cricket (Australia). Notwithstanding their absence of knowledge about the term ‘Boxing Day’, most of the Christian Faithfull’s usher this succeeding day of Christmas with the same relevance, though different from the Western world. As per the saying, Boxing Day is a time to spend with family or friends, usually those not seen on Christmas Day itself. In recent times, the day has become synonymous with many sports.

Distribution of gifts and cakes to their dears may have started as early as December 23. It goes on till December 26 and the highlight is the community feast that are being organized by various churches in various parts of the State. The community feast usually witnesses every strata of society taking part in the post- Christmas event. While Shillong is under the grip of the joyous solemn celebrations, again, it’s the tourists who are in awe about the solemnity of the celebrations.

“We could see everything beautiful about Christmas in your city but we also thought it will also be a dhamaka festival where everyone hits the streets to celebrate”, stated Subadeep Chakravorty, a tourist from West Bengal, even as he added that they were thinking of a Goa-like carnival on Christmas eve and Christmas day.

His impression is well understood from the feedbacks; when music players boom in every other alternate house to herald the coming of Christmas and the coming days. Those days of celebration ended in the early 1990s, thus leaving the past Christmas celebration to history.

As reported, the footfall of tourists into the State this Christmas season has plummeted but those in the hotel and allied business hope that the two three days ahead of New Year will change.

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