I couldn’t care less about Boxing Day and Canadians agree with me

There’s always been something magical about getting money at Christmas time.

When I was a kid, my grandma would make her way around the living room to each family member, and hand us an envelope with our first name (or names, if it were a couple) written in black cursive. Each and every year, I’d open my card with anticipation for what might fall out of it. A $50 bill here. A couple $100 bills there. Later that night, I’d hop into our family van and head home a richer kid than I was when I’d arrived. 

To a small child with no income stream to speak of, Christmas can feel like winning the lottery. To an adult with an income stream — but also bills to pay, debt to service, and hunger to keep at bay — it can represent a day of financial relief when you really need it. 

The holidays can get so ridiculously expensive, and it’s not unusual for people to go into debt just to get their gift list sorted. So on Christmas, when parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles shower you with money instead of actual gifts, you should enjoy it knowing you didn’t have to work for that money; you didn’t have to do anyone a favour. You quite literally just had to show up.

Which is why Boxing Day has always felt a bit cruel to me. There’s something terribly sad about getting a financial windfall (however small it might be), and then blowing it within 24 hours just because there’s a sale. Not only that, but in the weeks leading up to Christmas, I end up spending way more time than I’d like to inside a mall so the idea of going back into one after the whole ordeal is supposed to be o-v-e-r is, quite frankly, the last thing I feel like doing.

I can recall a few December 26ths where my mother would line up at a Staples or Best Buy at the crack of dawn, just, y’know, to see what the deals were. I never joined her. Not only am I not a morning person or a crowds person, I’m not someone who lets go of money lightly. No Boxing Day sale has enticed me so much that I felt compelled to wake up at five in the morning — or camp outside the store the night before (dear god).

I’m not the only one with blasé feelings about Boxing Day, either.

In a recent survey from the Retail Council of Canada (RCC), only 34% of respondents said they intended to shop on Boxing Day this year, down from 40% in 2018. Not only that — we plan to spend more of our holiday budget (38%) on Black Friday than we do on Boxing Day (30%). 

For years, Boxing Day has been Canada’s commercial baby — a holiday event far more celebrated across the country than Black Friday ever was. But clearly something’s shifting.

“This is a bit of a revolution, really, in Canadian retail,” says Michael Leblanc, senior retail advisor at the RCC. “It’s a big change.”

Black Friday seems to be slowly taking over as the commercial holiday of choice. According to RCC’s survey, 43% of respondents said they intended to shop on Black Friday, which is up 3% from last year. And data from payment processing company Moneris indicates that Boxing Day "has dropped significantly in popularity with consumers,” whereas Black Friday was the biggest shopping day of the year in 2018 in terms of transaction volume.

This makes sense, Leblanc says, when you think about the fact that Black Friday “fulfills a need — gifting.” If you’re smart about it, you could buy all your gifts for people on sale in advance of Christmas. No wonder this American staple is becoming superior north of the border.

Boxing Day, meanwhile, is getting the cold shoulder. And I say it’s about time. Why put yourself through the torture of going shopping when, yesterday afternoon, you likely loaded up on food and beverages that lend themselves very well to sleeping in (hello turkey, hello wine). You already went shopping this month. You did your mall time. You’re done. Just chill. 

And do me a favour, won’t you? Just try just hanging out with your holiday money for a while. Let the feeling of having, oh I don’t know, a couple hundred extra dollars to your name stew for a little bit. Savour it, because you’re gonna have to wait another whole year before it comes around again.