The origins of Boxing Day are in 2019 perhaps obscure. It was not,despite it now being a major sporting day,traditionally a time for boxing matches for example.
Rather the early modern traditions of the day go back to the 1660s (just after the period when Christmas had been banned) where Christmas gifts (usually money) were left in a box by the better off for those who had done work for them during the year.
Hutton in Stations of the Sun notes that Samuel Pepys recorded putting money in five or six such boxes on Christmas Day 1667 to allow the recipients to have a more enjoyable festive season.
Of course the wealthy being what they are complaints were not slow in coming. In 1710 Jonathan Swift complained that he would be ‘undone’ by the giving of Christmas boxes and in 1756 Sir John Fielding that the total cost of such boxes could amount to £30 (when the average wage was around £1 a week).
As Hutton notes the practice was not easily given up by the less well off and in 1871 Boxing Day itself became an official day off, a Bank Holiday.
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