May 5 is Liberation Day in the Netherlands, commemorating the end of the Nazi occupation in 1945. It’s a national holiday this year, but not next year, and not again until 2015-a quinquennial national holiday, although it used to be annual. I’ve been told the reason for its partial dismantling is that the government wanted to reduce time off, and, with the passage of time, fewer people remembered or felt so strongly about the underlying historical event.
While Europeans work less for pay than Americans, I hate to see Europe even begin to move to what I view as the American low-level equilibrium of short vacations, few holidays and long hours of market work. Instead, since competition does not seem to be leading us to work less, perhaps we should have more nationally mandated holidays (always on a Monday). Martin Luther King, Jr., Day was a good start; how about others-Adam Smith‘s birthday? Suggest your favorite.
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Chicago Day. Everyone would get the day off of work to think and ponder about how incredible the city of Chicago is.
We have an election here in the UK tomorrow. My Nigerian cleaner told me this morning that he was surprised that it isn’t a public holiday as it would be in his country!
You could have a brazilian day, since we have holidays for everything here in Brazil. More than a dozen a year. And if any is on Tuesday, why bother working on Monday?
This is because we are a very rich country and we don’t need to work hard…
Best regards, Rodolfo
I’m all for Talk Like a Pirate Day… 9/19… I suspect, however, that if September gains a federal holiday it will be a tad more than a week before 9/19….
Post-Superbowl Recuperation Day, whichever Monday that is.
Psychiatrist Appreciation Day, which should occur in August when therapists historically and stereotypically take vacations. This would be comparable to Labor Day, on which we don’t work in order to recognize workers.
Both Halloween and Easter should be national holidays. June needs a holiday- summer solstice? August needs one too.
I just recently celebrated Half-O-Ween with a large group of friends. We figured that there is too much time between crazy dress-up holidays, so we split the time between in half. The general themes were the opposite of Halloween, as Spring is just blooming and it’s finally become warm enough to be outside (even in Boston), so most of the costumes were bouncy fun and joyous instead of creepy. It puts a non-religious holiday in April (on the 30th) and is celebrated at night, so wouldn’t require you to sacrifice a work day against your will. This is a win-win-win-win scenario!
The European holiday model is working wonders for the Greeks. Glad to see those people still have the energy to go out and riot over working every year, instead of working.