Tuesday 29 November 2011

Sharing Public Holidays?

I mentioned that I like the idea of Thanksgiving.  Frances posed the question of what Aussie holiday I think Americans might enjoy taking on board.

You know, I've thought about this for a few days now and I'm struggling to come up with one that doesn't have some specifically Australia-only value!  Obviously many cultures and countries celebrate Easter and Christmas, so those ones don't count.  Here in Victoria we celebrate the commencement of the 8-hour Labour Day, ANZAC Day, the Queen's Birthday, Melbourne Cup Day and Boxing Day.  I'm not sure that any of them are ones that others would be inclined to take upon themselves unless they had some reason to do so.  I know some of our holidays are celebrated in other countries.  Other Commonwealth nations no doubt celebrate the Queen's birthday and New Zealand also observe ANZAC Day (hence the A and the NZ at the beginning of the acronym!).

I don't know, maybe Frances will answer her own question!  One thing I will say is that our public holidays are all but done with by June, leaving the latter six months of the year with only one.  It's a long time between long weekends when they're scattered so unevenly through the year.  After all, isn't that one of the things we enjoy about these days - the opportunity to have a paid day off work enjoying time with our friends and family on picnics and camping trips?  I think that's part of it!

2 comments:

Left-Handed Housewife said...

When you say the Queen's birthday, I'm assuming you mean the Queen of England? That's a holiday tradition I wouldn't mind taking up. What exactly do you do to celebrate? Does it involve sausages and Cadbury chocolate? If so, definitely sign me up!

xofrances

Tracy said...

LOL Frances. Sadly all it really means is that we have a Monday off - so a nice long weekend. In the middle of winter.

How do we celebrate? By staying home and doing nothing special. There really aren't any traditions that go with this one. That I know of anyway. Maybe I'll have to do some Googling to find out!