The People Work Hard

[00:00] So let's, okay, let's do something that'll make you happy.
[00:02] Let's move to America's favorite new podcast segment,
[00:07] the Undo Googleables.
[00:09] Yay!
[00:22] Oh, we do an Undo Googleables.
[00:24] That was the plan.
[00:26] Super excited.
[00:27] Told us we had to, sir.
[00:29] So we signed up for it.
[00:34] In the end, it's gonna be better and more true
[00:36] than Google can give you.
[00:40] Lighting the internet on fire.
[00:42] So this week, I think it's pretty timely,
[00:45] the Google question is, what is Boxing Day?
[00:52] Boxing Day.
[00:53] What is it?
[00:54] That's not Canadian stuff.
[00:54] Yeah, no, all I know is that the Canadians celebrate it
[00:59] and they revere it.
[01:00] I feel like it's a big deal.
[01:02] It's like a natural.
[01:03] Well, the British too, it's a commonwealth thing.
[01:05] Oh, really?
[01:06] I thought it was just Canadians.
[01:07] Yeah.
[01:08] Oh, okay, so it's a commonwealth thing?
[01:10] I believe so.
[01:11] It's a British government thing.
[01:12] So it's the 26th of December every year is Boxing Day.
[01:17] Right, day after Christmas.
[01:18] They take a day off, right?
[01:20] I know it's a big English Premier League day.
[01:23] It's like the Thanksgiving of the English Premier League.
[01:26] Like everybody plays on Boxing Day.
[01:29] I thought it was just a day that the Canadians
[01:32] took off after Christmas.
[01:36] But apparently it's also England and Australia and Wales.
[01:41] So I assume it has something to do with the Boxer Rebellion.
[01:45] Okay.
[01:46] Oh, you went deep.
[01:47] I went shallow.
[01:48] I was gonna say it had to do with returning boxes
[01:52] to the store after Christmas.
[01:55] I like that one.
[01:57] You're gonna get a national holiday for returning boxes?
[02:00] Yeah.
[02:01] Yeah, I mean it helps out the postal service.
[02:03] Stuff like that, I don't know.
[02:05] It's like reverse Black Friday.
[02:07] Instead of going out and buying stuff,
[02:08] you're sending everything back.
[02:09] Exactly.
[02:11] Okay, your idea is clearly more historically relevant.
[02:15] What was the Boxer Rebellion?
[02:18] Well, that's the thing.
[02:19] I don't know almost anything about the Boxer Rebellion.
[02:23] I'm gonna say, you know, naval power, China, and-
[02:35] China.
[02:37] China, and like late 1900s, that's all I got.
[02:41] And why was it, were there boxers involved?
[02:47] No, there were people named the boxers, maybe.
[02:53] I just made this stuff up now.
[02:54] Were they like a political movement or something like that?
[02:58] Yeah, I mean, I think that, yeah,
[03:01] someone said we don't like the Brits,
[03:04] and the Brits were like,
[03:05] we're gonna blow you up, and the Brits won.
[03:08] Okay, so they celebrate that the day of Christmas.
[03:11] That's a really good reason to have a national holiday,
[03:14] not returning boxes.
[03:15] Honestly, Jason, sorry.
[03:20] Was Guy Fawkes involved in this?
[03:23] Or that was a totally different thing.
[03:24] Guy Fawkes Day is like a whole different celebration, right?
[03:29] Yeah, that's where they burned Sherlock,
[03:31] that's where they burned John Watson
[03:33] under a effigy for some reason.
[03:35] Now, okay.
[03:36] To Sherlock Holmes related.
[03:38] He was like leading some sort of rebellion or something,
[03:40] or like trying to overthrow the Queen
[03:42] or something like that.
[03:45] And so they celebrate him now
[03:46] for trying to get rid of the monarchy.
[03:48] Right, isn't that, it's something like that, right?
[03:51] Guy Fawkes Day, yeah.
[03:52] I assume Boxing Day is similar.
[03:55] The Queen had to be saved at some point, right,
[03:57] to get a national holiday.
[03:59] Or tried to be killed, right?
[04:00] That's what I'm saying,
[04:01] but they saved her from trying to be killed.
[04:03] Not weeding.
[04:04] No, but I'm saying, or they tried to kill her.
[04:06] Now they celebrate that person,
[04:07] to throw out the shackles of the monarchy.
[04:09] Like, Britain's weird, right?
[04:11] They celebrate both things.
[04:12] They celebrate the monarchy and getting rid of the monarchy.
[04:15] Well, okay, and I feel like if Joey was here,
[04:18] he would know the answer to this,
[04:19] because I feel like he and Catherine celebrate Boxing Day.
[04:22] Is that a thing?
[04:24] I feel like he's mentioned it before.
[04:26] Well, because of soccer, maybe.
[04:27] Maybe because of soccer.
[04:29] I'm just wondering if Catherine's family celebrates
[04:33] Boxing Day.
[04:36] Because they were on the other side
[04:37] of this Britain, China.
[04:41] Yeah.
[04:42] Antagonism's full of it.
[04:45] All right, I'm gonna come in with,
[04:46] I don't agree with either of your thoughts on this.
[04:52] I'm gonna go with, it's the day after Christmas,
[04:55] and nobody wants to work,
[04:57] and so we came up with a holiday.
[05:00] That's my thing.
[05:02] Where people hit each other in the face.
[05:05] Because it's Canadian.
[05:09] No, I don't think it's, you know.
[05:12] It's the day that hockey was founded in Canada.
[05:16] I feel like, I really do.
[05:18] My entire life, I thought it was a Canadian holiday,
[05:20] so what do I know?
[05:21] I just assumed it was, I didn't know
[05:23] that the English, the British celebrated it,
[05:26] so I know nothing.
[05:29] It seemed like it's held in high revere, though, in Canada.
[05:34] I don't think it can just be.
[05:35] Oh, I think it's a super important day, right?
[05:37] Like, it's something.
[05:43] I just, I think it's colonialism day.
[05:45] I think it's the day that people tried to break away
[05:47] and then, you know, symbolic date
[05:49] upon which they held it together, maybe.
[05:52] Because they do love their colonies.
[05:56] Hmm, hmm.
[05:59] Now I wanna know what Guy Fox Day is all about.
[06:01] You look up Boxer Day,
[06:04] I'm gonna look up Guy Fox.
[06:05] So basically, we know nothing.
[06:06] Jason's idea is that it's the day
[06:09] that you box up your Christmas gifts
[06:11] and send them back.
[06:13] Which is my, I like that one.
[06:15] Harper's idea is that it's something related
[06:18] to a revolution with China.
[06:22] China.
[06:25] And I'm gonna go with it's something in between.
[06:30] Something in between.
[06:34] It's something in between.
[06:36] I don't know what data points are in between there.
[06:38] Way to come down.
[06:40] No, for me, it's Canadian
[06:42] and Canada is super nice.
[06:47] They're just super nice.
[06:48] And so, I think it's related to
[06:54] maybe not sending gifts back,
[06:56] but it's boxing up gifts and giving them to the poor.
[07:01] I think it's the day,
[07:04] I just wanna go with Canadian nicety.
[07:07] And they give stuff to poor people
[07:09] from all the riches they've gotten from Christmas.
[07:12] That's what I got.
[07:12] Okay, so you're getting close.
[07:13] Okay, so Boxing Day is a national holiday.
[07:19] It's a bank holiday in the Commonwealth nations.
[07:23] Okay, so you were on that.
[07:24] And the Oxford English Dictionary
[07:26] gives the earliest attestations from England in the 1830s
[07:31] defining it as, quote,
[07:34] the first weekday after Christmas Day
[07:37] observed as a holiday on which postmen,
[07:40] errand boys and servants of various kinds
[07:43] expect to receive a Christmas box.
[07:45] Really?
[07:47] And a Christmas box is basically a tip.
[07:50] No, apparently not.
[07:52] Apparently it's just like,
[07:53] we're gonna take a bank holiday and tip your postman.
[07:57] That is awesome.
[07:58] So Jason, you were,
[07:59] Jason, I think you get a point for that.
[08:01] Yeah, that was the closest that you were the postman.
[08:03] Well, we, except you were returning the gifts.
[08:06] We're...
[08:07] Yeah, sure, yeah.
[08:09] I mean, I wasn't close at all.
[08:09] Well, taking something is just money, not gifts.
[08:11] So basically, I just boxed something up
[08:13] for the postman to take
[08:16] instead of to deliver it somewhere, it's his.
[08:19] Right, you're giving those postman gifts.
[08:20] Instead of making him work,
[08:21] you're giving him recompense, yeah.
[08:23] Yeah, and it may have originated, I guess,
[08:26] even much earlier as a gift to a day for servants
[08:29] that you would give something awesome to your servants
[08:32] or whatever, that day.
[08:34] All right, so I've got here that, yeah,
[08:36] so servants were required to work on Christmas
[08:40] and so servants got the day after Christmas off.
[08:45] Gotcha, okay.
[08:47] It's also called St. Stephen's Day.
[08:50] That is fantastic.
[08:52] But that's the religious thing, but yeah.
[08:55] We got anything on Guy Fawkes Day?
[08:56] Yeah, so Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day,
[09:00] Bond Fire Night and Firework Night
[09:05] is 5 November and it celebrates Guy Fawkes,
[09:10] who was a member of the Gunpowder Plot,
[09:14] was arrested while guarding explosives
[09:16] the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords.
[09:20] So basically, they were gonna blow up.
[09:22] Yeah, they were gonna blow up Parliament.
[09:24] And King James survived, obviously,
[09:25] the attempt on his life.
[09:27] People lit bonfires around London, the celebration,
[09:30] and they chose November 5th as the day to honor that.
[09:37] And they honored the guy who almost blew him up
[09:40] by giving him the name.
[09:45] Yes.
[09:46] So I haven't dug too deep, so I don't know.
[09:47] So he was guarding the explosives,
[09:49] so I don't know if he actually,
[09:52] if he turned over on these guys,
[09:54] I guess we can find out here.
[09:56] What was that movie?
[10:00] Ocean's 11?
[10:01] No, it starts with V.
[10:03] V for Vendetta?
[10:04] V for Vendetta, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[10:06] Is that right?
[10:07] Yeah, it is.
[10:10] And in that, they say,
[10:11] remember, remember the 5th of November.
[10:15] Yeah, so there you go.
[10:17] That's a good reference there.
[10:19] Should've known that one.
[10:21] Dammit.
[10:22] Should've known that one.
[10:23] I saw a movie once.
[10:25] Should've known stuff.
[10:28] All right, well shout out to Boxer Day.
[10:31] Really, I'm still confused why it's so revered, though.
[10:34] Basically, we're just.
[10:37] Well, that's the niceness of.
[10:38] It's a people's holiday, right?
[10:40] Okay, so instead of.
[10:42] It's like Labor Day for us, I guess.
[10:44] Okay, okay, it's essentially Labor Day.
[10:47] We make the servants work on Christmas
[10:50] and we'll give them the day off after.
[10:52] But then now everybody in the Commonwealth
[10:54] gets the day off after, not just.
[10:57] Totally.
[10:58] Not just the servants.
[11:00] Because the people work hard, man.
[11:02] All right.
[11:03] They deserve a day off.