Boxing Day Poem

A brief scan of Wikipedia to find out about the origins of Boxing Day led me to this interesting tidbit:

In the UK, it was a custom for tradesmen to collect "Christmas boxes" of money or presents on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year. This is mentioned in Samuel Pepys' diary entry for 19 December 1663. This custom is linked to an older English tradition: in exchange for ensuring that wealthy landowners' Christmases ran smoothly, their servants were allowed to take the 26th off to visit their families. The employers gave each servant a box containing gifts and bonuses (and sometimes leftover food).

Interested by this, I decided to write a poem about Samuel Pepys and his family Christmas. It's quite silly but I feel like the seriousness of my posts of late warrant something a bit more ridiculous.

Christmas with the Pepyses

Thence by coach to my shoemaker’s and paid all there, and gave something to the boys’ box against Christmas. (From the Diary of Samuel Pepys, 19 December 1663)

In honour of age-old traditions

Wherein, at the festive time of the the year,

Those who had much would generously share

With those in less fortunate positions,

Mr Pepys took his coach to the shop

Of his shoemakers and there paid the lot

Of his bill for the year, and before he did trot

Away in his coach, he chose then to drop

Something to the boys’ box against Christmas.

The expression is odd, though Pepys too was odd

And his diary haphazard: that year he forgot

To write about Christmas Day, which must

Have been a riotous day for the Pepyses.

In one other year, his diary declares that he passed

Christmas Day with his wife and the boy whom he asked,

Or instructed, to read from Descartes before sleepses

And play for his master upon his sweet lute.

His wife sat undressed until ten, at the task

Of fixing a petticoat. (One has to ask

Why Pepys went forth in his waistcoat

That morning while she stayed boxed up at home.

His sympathy for her is clear, however.

Poor wretch he called her, and in such cold weather

A man deserves a vest of his own.)

Pepys slept soundly that night, his mind

In mighty content, he declared.

And ask though we might, if the others all shared

His content, the answer we sadly can’t find.