Shillong: It’s Boxing Day and the young and old in Meghalaya and across the world have been waiting for it to unwrap boxes full of Christmas gifts and be pleasantly surprised.

“Santa Claus has presented me with a Barbie and a kitchen set,” Audrey Manners said Friday as she took the Barbie doll out of a box. Audrey’s brother Robert was content when he got a remote-control toy car.

Boxing Day – Dec 26 – is the feast day of Saint Stephen and is also called St. Stephen’s Day. Boxing Day got that name because it was the tradition for employers to give a Christmas gift to their staff on that day – a Christmas box, as it was called.

Boxing Day is also part of the Christian/Catholic 12 days of Christmas tradition and is officially classed as the second day of Christmastide.

Christmastide officially ends Jan 6, with the feast of Epiphany (marking the day the Three Wise Men from the East presented their gifts to the infant Jesus, having followed a star to locate the baby).

Alms boxes are placed in every church on Christmas Day for worshippers to put in gifts for the poor of the parish. The boxes are opened on Boxing Day.

“I got woollen sweaters for my kids and a cardigan for myself and my husband,” said Margaret Warjri, a maid servant, who looks forward to this day of gifts.

Churches of various denominations in the city are organising community feasts which will continue right up to New Year’s Eve.

“Christmas is a time for sharing and caring for each other and promoting love and peace. And what better way to do so than to organise community feasts,” said Felix Basaiawmoit, who is busy serving local dishes to children in the Church of God premises.

Called ‘Bam Khana Krismas’ in the local language, these are occasions of great rejoicing when people of all communities share food cooked in a common kitchen.

Christmas across the eight northeastern states – Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Sikkim – has always been different. People from all faiths join the celebrations, strengthening bonds of togetherness and mutual respect.

Shillong, which is dotted with churches and chapels, wears a festive air this time of the year with street corners and households tastefully illuminated and parks and lake sides teeming with friends and families.

With state government offices and institutions closed for Christmas and New Year, Shillong these days is a city of leisure.

While government offices are scheduled to reopen in the first week of January, schools, colleges and other educational institutions will begin classes from mid-February.