Boxing Day is named for gift-giving — not the sport.

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Celebrated on December 26, Boxing Day is a public holiday in the United Kingdom and several British Commonwealth countries including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. And while its participants may feel like going a few rounds with the relatives who gave them yet another pair of Christmas socks, the holiday has more to do with the season’s spirit of generosity than the hard-hitting sport. Although the Oxford English Dictionary traces the first published mention of the term “Boxing Day” to 1743, the acts associated with the day are significantly older, and stem from murky origins. One popular theory is that the holiday grew from the tradition of distributing the donations collected in church alms boxes to the poor on December 26, a date historically celebrated as St. Stephen’s Day (or the Feast of St. Stephen) in honor of the charitable Christian martyr. Another widely cited belief is that members of the upper class once filled Christmas boxes with food, money, and small gifts and gave them to the household staff to enjoy on December 26, a well-deserved day off after spending Christmas Day in servitude.