What is boxing day about?

Boxing day is the day when we open the boxes ..the Xmas presents I mean :)

Boxing Day is a public holiday observed in many Commonwealth countries on the first day (other than Sunday) following Christmas Day.[1][2][3][4] In common usage, when 26 December falls on a Sunday, this is now referred to as Boxing Day[5] despite Boxing Day officially occurring on the 27 December[6][7][8]. From 1954 to 1993 in the United Kingdom, when 26 December was a Sunday it was referred to as Christmas Sunday, and "Boxing Day" in popular usage referred to the 27th, but this practice had fallen out of use by the time of the next occurrence in 1999. Boxing Day is often celebrated by giving gifts and donations to the poor and needy. Source: http://www.answers.com/boxing+day?initiator=IE7:SearchBox

It was the day when people would give a present or Christmas 'box' to those who had worked for them throughout the year. This is still done in Britain for postmen and paper-boys - though now the 'box' is usually given before Christmas, not after. In feudal times, Christmas was a reason for a gathering of extended families. All the serfs would gather their families in the manor of their lord, which made it easier for the lord of the estate to hand out annual stipends to the serfs. After all the Christmas parties on 26 December, the lord of the estate would give practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land. Each family would get a box full of such goods the day after Christmas. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obliged to supply these goods. Because of the boxes being given out, the day was called Boxing Day. In England many years ago, it was common practice for the servants to carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day's work on the day after Christmas. Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts. This can be compared with the modern day concept of Christmas bonuses. The servants carried boxes for the coins, hence the name Boxing Day. In churches, it was traditional to open the church's donation box on Christmas Day, and the money in the donation box was to be distributed to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day. In this case, the "box" in "Boxing Day" comes from that lockbox in which the donations were left. Boxing Day was the day when the wren, the king of birds,[3] was captured and put in a box and introduced to each household in the village when he would be asked for a successful year and a good harvest. See Frazer's Golden Bough.