December 26th is traditionally the holiday known as Boxing Day in most of the English-speaking world. In the US, it's a minor moment for after Christmas sales but elsewhere it may rival Black Friday for the retail world.

But originally, Boxing Day was when wealthy people gave gifts to servants, tradesmen and charities. It became a time for people to think of others less fortunate than themselves before morphing into a bargain-hunting monument to personal consumerism.

In this year of 2020, we have a Boxing Day Tragedy. In the US, many people are losing their jobless benefits while the economy is still on the ropes and worldwide, there is a resurgence of hunger due to the disruptions of Covid-19.

Here at BigCloset, we depend in large part on donations to keep our website open. Though we have advertising and publication revenues, the major fraction of our budget is met by contributions and gifts from our readers and authors.

This year, while we haven't yet met our goals for contributions, I'd like to ask for a revival of the True Meaning of Boxing Day. We have money in the bank (not a lot), most of our bills are paid for the month (except to ourselves), so I'd like to know that our community is able to reach out to the wider world that does not always acknowledge or respect our existence. Despite that, we can and should offer a bit of help to those in need.

I'm not asking anyone who is in need themselves to contribute but for the rest of us, there are food banks everywhere and worthy charities that can make a dolllar, a pound or a euro a bit of a lifeline for someone.

I'll go so far as to say, if you had intended to give BigCloset a gift in this last week of a pandemic year, please, look around and choose to make that gift to those in need. We'll survive here until a new and brighter year begins.

None of us made this world we live in and share with others. But remember the True Meaning of Boxing Day is sharing with others.

Hugs and a Happy Boxing Day to all,
Erin and the gang here in the BigCloset