Today is St. Stephen's day, or as it's better known in Britain and its Commonwealth countries, Boxing day. The old carol, "Good King Wenceslaus" references this day...In the old calendar, where 12 days of Christmas were celebrated, this would be the second day of Christmas. It seems that both St. Stephen's Day and Boxing Day share the common theme of having been a day of giving alms to the poor. (Boxing day was also the day when servants were given their Christmas gifts).
In Ireland, they used to have The Hunting of the Wren on this day, presumably because legend states that a wren gave away Stephen's hiding place. Not sure how I feel about the idea of killing a wren just to commemorate the day...much better to use a paper cut-out of a wren, maybe.
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