Читать книгу Little Book of Wooden Boxes - Oscar Penn Fitzgerald - Страница 11

As a measure of their preciousness, snuffboxes were often given as gifts or to celebrate heroic deeds or special events. Boxes were issued to commemorate the hot-air balloon assent of the Montgolfier brothers in the late-eighteenth century and to celebrate the victory of Admiral Vernon over the Spanish at Portobello in 1739.

Sailors who made scrimshaw ditty boxes and other items for their loved ones at home continued the tradition of gift boxes into the nineteenth century. In Germany, and also in Pennsylvania, where so many of their countrymen immigrated during the eighteenth century, brides would be given painted oval or round boxes decorated with flowers and figures as a traditional wedding present containing trinkets and ribbons.

Boxing Day, falling the day after Christmas, is celebrated in Britain, Canada, and several other countries, as a day to give gift boxes to servants and tradespeople. Although the exact origin of the custom is obscure, it may relate to the practice of opening church poor-boxes at Christmas time, or to the fact that servants had to work on Christmas Day and were rewarded the day after with gifts—much like today’s Christmas bonus.