The British holiday of Boxing Day is a secular holiday traditionally held Dec. 26 or the first weekday after Christmas. It seems to have come from a tradition of giving tips or “Christmas Boxes” to servants and various workers.
The way I see it, Boxing Day has two big reasons to recommend it, and we could stand to apply the mentality in other situations.
First, it’s an opportunity to celebrate the people who help make the world work: the mailpersons, trash collectors, and other workers who do their job with no special recognition the rest of the year.
Second, it’s an opportunity to recover from the excesses, the stresses, and the restlessness of an oversized holiday like Christmas. A bank holiday falling right after Christmas is a welcome chance to rest.
It’s worth considering whether Boxing Day might have some value to your own holiday celebrations, but it’s also worth applying the mentality to the day after a concert. We build, build, build to a concert, and we really need the extra space of a Boxing Day to recover, and to show our appreciation for the choristers, instrumentalists, stage crew, support staff, conductors, parents, and the rest who help make it run smoothly.