I’M WRITING this on Boxing Day 2025, an official holiday in the United Kingdom and many other countries, especially those such as Canada and Australia which once formed the British Empire, but it is not always called Boxing Day. In European countries, and those unfortunate parts of the world that remained untouched by the civilising hand of British imperialism, it is often known as ‘Second Christmas Day’, ‘Zweiter Weihnachtsfeiertag’ in German, or in French the more mellifluous ‘Le lendemain de Noël’.
