Holiday

A holiday is day set aside by a nation or culture (in some cases, multiple nations and cultures) typically for celebration but sometimes for some other kind of special culture-wide (or national) observation or activity.

Based on the English words holy and day, holidays originally represented special days of the Christian Church calendar. The word has evolved in general usage to mean any special day, or even non-special day on which school and/or offices are closed such as Sunday.

In late 20th century, Saturday has become increasingly considered holiday as well as Sunday.

In Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom; a holiday can also mean a period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation (e.g. "I'm going on holiday to Majorca next week."), like an American vacation.

Public holidays

A public holiday or legal holiday is a holiday endorsed by the state (ie schools and offices are closed). Public holidays can be either religious, in which case they reflect the dominant religion in a country, or secular, in which case they are usually political or historical in character.

Consecutive holidays

Consecutive holidays are a string of holidays taken together without working days in between. They tend to be considered a good chance to take short trips, for example.

In late 1990s, the Japanese government passed a law that increases the likelihood of consecutive holidays by moving holidays fixed on certain day to a relative position in a month such as the second Monday. A well-known consecutive holiday in Japan is golden-week, roughly lasting a whole week.

A similar phenomenon appears in Poland during holidays of 1st and 3rd of May, when taking few days of leaves can result in even 9 days long holidays. This is called The Picnic (or Majówka).

The US Congress changed the observance of Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, and Washington's Birthday from fixed dates to certain Mondays in 1968 (effective 1971). Several states had passed similar laws earlier.

Long Weekend

In countries where Saturday and Sunday are the normal 'weekend holiday', when a public holiday falls on a Friday on Monday, this is often referred to as a long weekend.

also see:

Religious holidays

Secular Holidays

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia and from ShiningRise.com

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