Why the British (and many of their former colonies) celebrate Boxing Day … well, it’s just odd. Apparently, they don’t even know themselves. They have guesses, but …

Maybe it was one of the earliest successful pushes to extend a holiday — a notion that has led to so many modern three-day weekends in the United States and Canada.

Why I have come to appreciate Boxing Day is more specific and selfish.

Premier League soccer!

If you have ever attempted to make a sports section interesting in the final 10 days or so of a year … well, you know how difficult it can be.

Leagues shut down or cut back. (All of the other main European soccer leagues close down for at least two weeks at this time of the year.) In the States, colleges and high schools scale back, and the big bowl games are still ahead.

The Premier League, however, goes out of its way to play on Boxing Day. Which means, here at The National, where we pay close attention to the English top flight, batches of preview copy to use on Christmas Day and a full slate of games to report on, on Boxing Day, for the edition of December 27.

(December 26 and 27 are two of the dead-est newspapers of the year, in the Western world.)

The Premier League delivered, too. In spades. Eight games concluded in time for our deadline — and we are four hours ahead of England.

Including perhaps the most fun-to-watch match so far this season: Manchester United 4, Newcastle United 3 in a pouring rain at Old Trafford. Newcastle led 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2, and the winning goal was scored in the 90th minute.

We had other items in the section on December 26-27. Of course. But both sections would have been significantly less fun without the curious English preference to make their footballers play on their curious December 26 holiday.