In days of yore, my dad didn’t work on Good Friday or Easter Monday or Tuesday! And now everybody in Britain does, I suppose. But over here, where Viking bums on pews are as common as hens’ teeth, people are officially off work on three days, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday. That’s as many days off as at Juletide. Although that’s child’s-play compared with Cyprus where if you’re crafty you can celebrate two Xmases and two Easters. I fully expect LW to report that the New World doesn’t have any days off at Easter at all – but what of the rest of you charioteers? Do tell.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Just Good Friday and Easter Monday are paid public holidays here.
Industry shuts down but most else operates normally (except banks, they close)
Y’see, in Britain, Friday and Monday are bank holidays but only Monday is widely observed. Retailers here are only just starting to realise that when people aren’t working they want to shop!!
Schools here (4 terms) are on the first break of the year, about 2 weeks. The Easter long weekend is traditionally the last of the holidays before autumn and winter set in.
We will be packed with holidaymakers this week.
Our retail outlets have always opened on Sundays and public holidays (well, the last 30 years or so.)
Would you believe that I have been invited to a ‘barbecue’ on the 7th, ‘Easter Saturday’. Now, I use the first ” marks to alert you to the fact that my hosts are clearly not South African. They are in fact British. The second ” marks are to express my alarm and disgust that these people, who really should know better, make the mistake of confusing Holy Saturday with Easter Saturday, which as you all know is a week later.
None of which answers your question, Janus. Here in Cape Town there is a good mix of faiths. The ANC government has made public holidays part of our national culture so any enterprise other than retail finds excuses not to business at every opportunity. This characteristic even features in TV commercials.
“Wednesday is National Sangoma’s Day. Thursday is Human Rights Day. Friday is World Cup Remembrance Day. Then it is December, so we will have to wait til next year to make an appointment”.
But with Jews and Muslims ready and willing to work throughout to supply us Christians with alcohol, there is usually somebody selling something somewhere. Actually, retailers are not allowed to sell alcohol on Sundays.
FYI SA’s official holidays.
1 January New Year’s Day
21 March Human Rights Day
The Friday before Easter Sunday (2012: 6 April) Good Friday
The Monday following Easter Sunday (2012: 9 April) Family Day
27 April Freedom Day
1 May Workers’ Day
16 June Youth Day
9 August National Women’s Day
24 September Heritage Day
16 December (2012: 16 December is a Sunday: 17 Dec is a holiday) Day of Reconciliation
25 December Christmas Day
26 December Day of Goodwill
Morning Sipu
Here in the E Cape our bottle stores can and do open Sundays.
That’s it Soutie, I am moving East!
Australia is supposed to be a ‘secular’ country – with no ‘established’ religion.
But, Good Friday and Easter Monday are observed as ‘shut-down’ days when nothing opens and transport is virtually non-existent. Does not compute!
It has always surprised me that here in France, a mainly Roman Catholic country, Good Friday has never been a public holiday as long as I remember. Easter Monday is. I remember shops being close in Britain on both days. I think Boots the Chemist was one of the last big chains to keep observing Good Friday.
Ah! Eostre the pagan Godess of fertility, spring etc., and another fine celebration stolen by the tonsured longskirts.
We get just the one day off on Friday (Frig, another pagan, was somebody’s wife I understand) but the Canucks get Monday too (that’s the day of the Moon Godess) .
When I say WE I mean those few of us who still work and always excepting those in “retail merchandising” who work both those days and all the others too.
LW has it above. I never could quite understand why the USA, a place full of religious maniacs, had such miserable Easter holidays!
I have to go to a meeting on Easter Monday evening and I am far from amused, it goes quite against the grain.
As LW says shops are open all the time. Personally I refuse to shop at weekends, evenings, Bank Holidays as a total matter of principle. But then I refuse to shop most of the time, in my book it is in the same department as holidays, to be endured as little as possible!
Our local Sainsbury opening hours gives an indication for trading over Eater
Good Friday 0700 – 2000
Easter Sunday Closed – Closed
Easter Monday 0900 – 1900
So only Easter Sunday observed as a holiday. My chaps are on a school hol now for three weeks. Revising.
Good evening, Janus.
As usual, we do things differently in Jockland with local public holidays being decided by the relevant toon cooncil.
In douce and devout Embra, for example, we have both Good Friday and Easter Monday but the cursed Weegies only get the Monday and the stern and unbending Aberdonians get neither, preferring to have a Spring holiday on 16th April. The Dundonians are partying today.
And so it goes. The Clydeside Reds have May Day but we still celebrate the birthday of our own dear Queen, the Empress Victoria, on or about the 24th of May.
Interesting then, y’all, that only the Vikings do Maundy Thursday, alongside Germany, the Philippines and Peru. Probably because the Last Supper was the archetypal ‘cosy get-together’ (‘hygge’) – of which Danes are so fond.
This year Greek Easter is a week later than the UK (because they still follow the moon and the real traditional Easter, unlike the Catholic splitters). For me I just look forward to a couple of days off.
However I do feel it is high time that we fixed Easter at a set weekend, say the second weekend of April, it would make life a lot easier than this continual changing date. After all we fixed Whitsun to a set weekend so not impossible.
rr hush yo mouth!
This is a CHRISTIAN country, just, still!
Easter MOVES!
And of course Whit should never have moved, God rot the politicians, the wogs and the liberals!
Stuff yer god bollocks but thank you for the two days off work. 🙂
So god is male then, Furry?
No Hugh,
Just bollocks.
🙂