To find Boxing Day Shopping a Bit Sad?

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Just that really!

I remember growing up, EVERYWHERE shut over the Christmas period. The roads were dead. It was very peaceful.

Now, it seems that the January sales have become the 'Boxing Day Sales'! I was chatting to some of my mum's friends and they were planning on going out shopping on Boxing Day!?! How can anyone be bothered?

I officially get 11 days off for Xmas which is too flipping long.

I never find anything I like in any sale. I think the trick might be to enjoy buying lots of unrequired tat.

No, that's not true, I got DH a Xmas jumper today. It may be too small! But he needs one, it was ok to look at (it has a carrot!), and it was £5 off. Woohoo.

I understand that some people are lonely/ don't have family, etc., but why should it be the job of underpaid retail workers to fill that void? I think it's quite selfish to expect thousands of people to work on Boxing Day just so that a few people feel less lonely.

I'm a committed sales shopper but I really wish they would stay closed on Boxing Day and start the sales on the 27th - I hate schlepping out on Boxing Day, it would be a million times harder for the people working it.

Well as mentioned above TV, social media and most online facilities aren't essential on Boxing day either. Perhaps if all except emergency services had the day off all these people valuing family time would be able to truly embrace it.

Would everyone carrying on about the need for family time on Boxing day be happy then?

That’s hardly the same sooty!

Maybe not Reallytired but I don't see the big deal about boxing day really.
I don't particularly want to go to the sales on that day but if I did it would be no use to me starting them on 27th. I can't be the only person returning to work then surely?

I have no interest in going to the Boxing Day sales on Tuesday either but don’t think anyone who does is sad. As PP have said, some people return to work on the 27th December or else don’t celebrate Christmas in the first place and want to buy things at a reduced price. Perhaps some people also don’t have any family or friends to spend the day with and enjoy being able to go out and be around other people.

Online shopping, I suppose. To extend that, when do retail staff shop? :)

It’s not about the shops, it’s about essentially that we value consumerism over families, which is sad.

I might get a few bits online but no way will we be physically going sales shopping.

I remember once when I was small Mum and I travelled 200 miles to visit my grandparents on Boxing Day. They were in their coats and hats all ready to whisk us off to the sales! We were very and didn’t bother doing that journey on Boxing Day again.

I have no one to spend CD or BD with, but I am still able to recognise that others do and would like to do so.

My need to be around others can wait another day.

Really - or families are working! I am working Christmas Day as are my family

Obviously, there are some jobs where people really have to work. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to take the stance that since nurses / police / carers have to be at work, so go should Tesco checkout assistants and O2 staff.

Surely everyone can wait until day after Bocing Day? I work all over Christmas and New Year but I don’t get the shopping thing. There are plenty of open space if people feel trapped!

All shops should be closed on Boxing Day

YANBU.

The beauty of Boxing Day is that the shopping is finally over.

I need to buy a lot of things for redecorating my ds's bedroom into a place for a grown up while he's at uni. I'll be at the sales to get some bargains for that.

For me Christmas is the 25th and 26th December. Shops definitely should not be open that day. M&S don't open so why do other shops?

I used to work in retail and hated having to work. Instead of a 5.30 finish on Christmas Eve we would have to work till 8pm or later to get the sale stuff ready. Then back at 9am Boxing Day. Oh and of course we had to work New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. No extra money, no choice of working or not. No holiday to be taken in whole of November and December.

Boxing Day where I worked was almost all refunds. Most years we paid out more in refunds than we took in. What on earth is the point of that?

I think it is very sad that so many people in this country are obsessed with shopping. It's like a religion for them

The thing that gets on my nerves is the entitled attitudes of some people regarding the sales, like they think it's a basic human right to get reduced products. Look at the moaning and fuss people make on the lush Facebook page over their boxing day sale every year to see what I'm talking about. It's embarrassing

As society we have completely lost track of what is important.
Yet more shopping, more and more senseless junk to full senseless lives - a conveyor belt of senseless capitalism.

Go for a walk in the woods, drop in on an elderly neighbour, play games - go and see the relatives - for goodness sake don't waste a cherished family day off battling with the masses to make other people rich. There is nothing you need that much, nothing any of us needs fgs.

full - fill

I'm not against people shopping on Boxing Day if that's what they want, but I think those who get up at 3am the day after Xmas, to stand outside Next in the freezing cold need to get a life. I can't think of anything worse!

Shopping has become a leisure activity, and whilst I sympathise with those having to work, they took the job.
I looked at retail work but didn't go for any as Boxing Day working was expected.
You don't have to go if you don't want to, and they only open because they make money.
I won't be going, but have nothing against anyone else who wants/needs to go.

I worked in retail in the mid 80s ,we closed about 2pm Christmas Eve and reopened on 27th. No one died because they couldn't go shopping for new shoes etc.I feel so sorry for the staff. My son in law is working tomorrow until 11 pm at effing MaccyDs. Unless he gets a lift he has to walk 4 hours to get here.We don't drive or we would go and collect him.

YANBU. Boxing day is for a family walk.

I love it when people say this. I don't know where you live but my parents live in the same inner city street where I grew up. Unless I want to walk the streets or go for a leisurely stroll around the sort of park that's full of drug dealers, there is nowhere for a quaint Boxing Day walk.

"t, electricity, water on Sunday?"

UK Power Networks failed spectacularly at Christmas 2013.

Shops were still open that Boxing Day though. Priorities eh?