Welcome to Boxing Day! What is Boxing Day? A national holiday, a day to spend with family and friends and to eat up all the leftovers of Christmas Day. The origins of the day, however, are steeped in history and tradition.

In recent times, the day has become synonymous with many sports. Another ‘sport' to emerge in recent years is shopping, with Boxing Day sales up and down the country.

It's also the birthday of my mother, Pat Liddle, who turns 81 today. Happy birthday Mum!

In today's weather forecast we are expecting a few showers, frequent from midday, with a chance of early evening thunderstorms. This should be clearing at night as northerlies turn southwest.

It's a one-clothing layer day today with a high of 24 and an overnight low of 14 degrees.

High tide is at 1.20pm and low tide at 7.40pm. Sea temperature is 20 degrees. There's an average sea swell of .3m. Sunset tonight is at 8.34pm.

If you're going fishing today the best fish bite times are between 6.30 and 8.30pm.

This day in NZ history in 1879 there was Sectarian violence in Canterbury. In Christchurch, 30 Catholic Irishmen attacked an Orange (Protestant) procession with pick-handles, while in Timaru 150 men from Thomas O'Driscoll's Hibernian Hotel surrounded Orangemen and prevented their procession from taking place.

In world history on this day in 1932 over 70,000 people were killed in a massive earthquake in China. In 1982 Time magazine chose a personal computer as its 'Man of the Year”, the first non-human ever to receive the honour.

In 2004 a tsunami caused by a 9.3-magnitude earthquake killed more than 230,000 along the rim of the Indian Ocean.

In 2006 former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford died at age 93. Ford was the only unelected president in America's history.

Today is the birthday of Charles Babbage, an English mathematician who perfected the calculating machine. He was born in 1792. It's also the birthday of Mao Tse-tung, founding father of the People's Republic of China, who was born in 1893. And it's the birthday of English poet Thomas Gray. Born in 1716 he wrote "Youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms."

To check out what's happening today, please view our What's On page.

Have a great day!