The Boxing Day traditions that I have come to cherish - Sarah Todd

If they worked for kindly Victorian masters, they may also have been lucky enough to have been given their own gift box.

The ultimate Christmas enthusiast, Queen Victoria, insisted every year that her own Royal family joined the servants in their quarters to share gifts before opening any of their own presents.

It also became custom to give a ‘Christmas Box’ gift to male workers employed by tradesmen such as the butcher and baker, a custom that extended over the years to include public workers such as dustmen.

Nobody is more miserable about daft gift giving than yours truly, but it’s hard not to think fondly about a time when some cash or a small gift could be handed over for a job well done without feelings of awkwardness or offence being taken.

A crisp fiver was recently proffered to a refuse worker who had helped carry some junk out of the back of the car at the local tip.

He really did go the extra mile in making the job easier and all with a smile and a joke.

No, he refused, saying it would be a sackable offence to accept. There seems to be something wrong with that.

On the flip side of the coin, there is nothing worse than sour-faced waitresses who haven’t cracked a smile all evening, announcing - as the card payment machine comes out - that “a service charge has been added”.

Our family always looks awkward as their mother says she won’t be paying it, thank you very much.

This columnist must be mellowing, because there was a time she would have poured cold water on people putting their coats on and going out to try and grab a bargain in the Boxing Day sales.

It became an annual tradition for some families in the 1990s, when then Prime Minister John Major amended Sunday trading laws allowing shops to open for the Bank Holiday.

Time was, going out shopping the day after Christmas would have been criticised as a bit disrespectful when there are all the other days in the year to hit the High Street.

But now, the idea of people still actually going out in person with their money (all be it in the format of a plastic card or pinging their phone) seems a healthy, sociable thing.

Far better than the alternative of sitting in silence on the sofa at home, scrolling slack jawed through online offers.

Meanwhile, in some European countries - such as Hungary, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands - Boxing Day is celebrated very much as a second Christmas Day.

In our corner of Yorkshire, The Husband will be outside in the cold watching a rugby match while The Son will be one of the thousands flocking through the turnstile at Wetherby Races.

His mother will be sat in front of the fire, kept company by a trio of terriers, enjoying the four-legged action from Kempton Park Racecourse on the television.

Catching a football match is a big part of many families' Christmas traditions.

This stems back to the days before television, when there would be a full programme of matches on Christmas Day with fans popping on hats and gloves to go and watch football at grounds across the UK as soon as they had finished eating.

Attitudes changed and the final Christmas Day football match took place in 1957, leaving Boxing Day as the traditional festive fixture.

Those of us from a certain generation probably presume that working over Christmas means double or even triple pay but this is increasingly rare.

Employers do not legally have to offer staff any extra money to work over the festive period.

That doesn’t seem fair, especially when one thinks about how much restaurants and the like charge for food over the festive period.

If they were paying staff extra than it could be justified, but if they are on their normal wages then some of this season’s festive menus are yet another example of rip-off Britain.

Thinking aloud, no wonder some staff look surly.

Finally, a toast to all those slaving away at the oven face yesterday.

May all your Boxing Day dreams, even if it’s as simple as sitting in front of the fire, come true.

Sarah Todd is a journalist specialising in farming and country life. Read her regular column in Wednesday’s edition of The Yorkshire Post.