Various holidays

In NZ we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, not because we have nothing to be thankful about, but because it isn’t one of our history.

Quite apart from that the date is too close to Christmas, and because Christmas and the annual summer holidays all tend to run together in NZ, that time of year is already a big one in terms of ‘celebration.’

As it happens we don’t have any public holidays between Labour Day on the 22nd of October and Christmas. So by the time Christmas comes we’re really ready for days off.

I see that the US, however, has Veterans’ Day on the 12^th November, and then Thanksgiving only ten days later. A bit of a clutter in that month.

In Spain they have yet another holiday in that period: 1^st November is All Saints’ Day, 6^th December is Constitution Day and 8^th December is Immaculate Conception Day. Three holidays in December. That’s a bit over the top.

Of course in NZ we have Christmas Day and Boxing Day as statutory holidays, and then a week later New Year’s Day and the Day-After-New-Year’s Day, which apparently doesn’t have a name even though it’s a public holiday. These four make up for our lack of holidays in the previous couple of months, and also ensure that we get over the Christmas rush.