Newsletter chitchat - November 26, 2024

[Cassel]

What kinds of holidays do you have in your area and what days are they on?

Are they typically around the weekend (Friday or Monday) or other days of the week?

Let's share.

[Susan Ewart]

In in Canada too, most of them are on Mondays, which I work and w do some of Mondays' work on the Friday and then work Monday too.  I do not like long weekends as they are actually shorter than regular weekends.  Of course Christmas, New Years and Canada Day are date specific and Easter is a Friday holiday here.   

[Rene Marker]

I had never thought about why Thanksgiving is on a Thursday in the US until you questioned it. So I looked it up. And, this is what I found:

In 1789 Pres. George Washington decreed Thursday, November 26, as a day of public thanksgiving, but, in the years that followed, the holiday bounced informally from month to month and date to date. The last Thursday in November became the norm in 1863 with a declaration by Pres. Abraham Lincoln.

Evidently in 1938 President Roosevelt changed it to the third Thursday in November. It wasn't popular so in 1941 President Roosevelt signed a resolution establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the Federal Thanksgiving Day holiday.

And, that change eventually led to the unofficial "Black Friday" holiday... that now is a multi-week event and spawned Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday.

[Corrie Kinkel]

Well I live in a different part of the world and besides the more or less universal days on Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and New Year we have a couple of national days during the week. By the way X-mas, Easter and Pentecost are 2 days! There is Kingsday on April 27 and it is always celebrated on the day itself, except when that day is a Sunday then it will be on Saturday the 26th. Next comes Liberation day Mai 5 and that is an official holiday only once in every 5 years, so coming year we have an extra day off. Besides those there is Good Friday and Ascension day, which always is on a Thursday. There are discussions now to swap one of the second days of the Christian related days for the Eid al Fitr, which signals the end of the Ramadan. The Netherlands is a small country and all our holidays are national ones.

[Ann Seeber]

We followed the Christian holidays of Easter which fell in March or April and I'm still not sure how it is calculated. As for Christmas, our family always kept the tree up until January 6th as that was my mom's birthday which coincided with Three Kings Day, but my husband and I also encountered the Mexican celebration of Three Kings Day when we started to vacation in Acapulco. Invariably, we would arrive just before the big day and encounter this huge celebration with lots of children running around our tourist hotel. 🎄

[Cassel]

32 minutes ago, Ann Seeber said:

We followed the Christian holidays of Easter which fell in March or April and I'm still not sure how it is calculated.

Although I do not know WHY, I know how it is calculated: it is the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the spring equinox.

That means that it can be very early if the first full moon is the day after the equinox and it is on a Saturday (so the first Sunday would be the next day). This could mean March 23 or so.

But it can also be fairly late if the equinox is ON a full moon. In that case, the first full moon would be 28 days later. And if that falls on a Sunday, the first Sunday after would be 7 days later. In that case, it can be as late as April 25th.

[Jannette Nieuwboer]

44 minuten geleden zei Ann Seeber:

ik weet nog steeds niet zeker hoe het wordt berekend

Pasen valt altijd op de eerste zondag na volle maan na de lente-equinox (dan klopt de lente op de deur). Pinksteren veertig dagen later. Kerstmis is geplaatst op een dag van een oude godsdienst, ca 600 na Christus. Omdat in die tijd niemand wist wanneer de christus geboren was vierden zij het nieuwe jaar. Nieuwjaarsdag valt op de winter equinox. Er zijn ook nog landen zoals in Scandinavië waar ze de zomer equinox vieren met de midzomernacht.

Edited November 27 by Jannette Nieuwboer

[Jannette Nieuwboer]

3 minuten geleden, Cassel zei:

Ik weet ik wel hoe het wordt berekend: Pasen  is de eerste zondag, na de eerste volle maan, na de lente-equinox. 

. In dat geval zou de eerste volle maan 28 dagen later zijn. En als dat op een zondag valt, is de eerste zondag erna 7 dagen later. In dat geval kan het pas op 25 april zijn.