Posted on 01/02/2005 9:08:14 AM PST by UnklGene
Americans have their holidays in perspective -
January 2, 2005
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
''Are you working over Christmas?'' I asked the waitress at my local diner on Thursday, Dec. 23.
Erica looked bewildered. ''No,'' she said. ''We're closed Christmas Day.''
My mistake. I'd just been on the phone to an editor in London who'd wanted early copy for the late January issue because no one was going to be in the office ''over Christmas.'' I'd forgotten that, in the United States, ''over Christmas'' means Dec. 25. In London and much of the rest of Europe, it's a term of art stretching as far into mid-January as you can get away with.
So Christmas 2004 is over over here, but over there they're just getting into their stride. In America, even with separation of church and state, the Christmas holiday is what it says: a holiday for Christmas. If it happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday, tough. See you at work Monday morning. But across the Atlantic, if Christmas and New Year fall on the weekend, the ensuing weeks are eaten up by so many holidays they can't even come up with names for them. I see from the well-named ''Beautiful Ireland'' calendar I was sent this year that tomorrow -- Monday, Jan. 3, 2005 -- is a public holiday throughout the British Isles -- the Morning After The Morning After The Morning After Hogmanay? -- and the lucky Scots get Tuesday, Jan. 4, off too -- the First Hogtuesday After Hogmonday? Eventually, the entire Scottish economy will achieve the happy state of their enchanted village of Brigadoon and show up for one day every hundred years.
I've spent Christmas on both sides of the pond and, on the whole, I prefer the intensity of the American version: the big buildup, nonstop seasonal favorites on the radio between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, and then at midnight on Dec. 25, it all stops, and Dec. 26 is a perfectly normal day. Whereas the last Christmas I spent in rural England is as near as I hope I ever get to experiencing my own hostage crisis. ''Is it Christmas Bank Holiday Thursday yet?'' ''No, it's still Boxing Day. Have another cold turkey sandwich and some stale punch.'' I've nothing against a three-week Christmas in principle, but there doesn't seem to be enough to fill it up.
The French and Germans, who average 40 days vacation a year, assume the reason Americans don't take holidays is because they don't get them. In fact, it's very hard persuading Americans to take the ones they do get. In rural states, most federal holidays -- Presidents Day, Martin Luther King Day, etc. -- go unobserved except by banks and government agencies. It was all I could do to persuade my assistant not to come in on Christmas Day -- ''just for a couple of hours in the morning in case there's anything urgent,'' she says pleadingly.
''There won't be anything urgent,'' I scoff.
''What about all that European research you wanted me to chase up?''
''Those deadbeats won't be back in the office till the week before Valentine's Day.'' Since lunchtime on Dec. 23, every business in Europe has been on an answering machine.
It's true there are those in America who occasionally aspire to Europe's elegant lethargy. In the special Princess Di tribute issue of the New Yorker rushed out by Tina Brown, she offered her own queenlier-than-thou farewell: ''When the news came of her death, my first thoughts were of place and time -- of the wrongness of any royal princess, even a divorced one, contriving to be in that place at that time. In late summer, the Paris of the rich and the titled simply closes down,'' she wrote. ''Paris in August . . .? The fact that she was there at all was discordant, a poignant symbol of a season of panic and flight.''
So not only was the Princess of Wales' death a terrible tragedy, it seems it was also a ghastly social faux pas.
But Paris in August, like London ''over Christmas,'' is in itself a symbol of flight -- flight from work. In 1999, the average ''working'' German worked 1,536 hours a year, the average American 1,976. In the United States, 49 percent of the population is in employment, in France 39 percent. From my strictly anecdotal observation of German acquaintances, the ideal career track seems to be to finish school around 34 and take early retirement at 42. By 2050, the pimply young lad in lederhosen serving you at the charming beer garden will be singlehandedly supporting entire old folks' homes. If tax rates were to be hiked commensurate to the decline in tax base and increase in welfare obligations, there would be no incentive at all to enter the (official) job market. Better to stay at school till 38 and retire at 39. That's why America's richer, and why, though the Europeans preen about their kinder, gentler society, customers of Amazon.com have pledged more money to disaster relief in the Indian Ocean than the French government.
It would require enormous political will to shift the people of Europe. After you've turned citizens into junkies, with government as the pusher, it's very hard to turn them back again, and even harder to get them to quit cold turkey. It's all but impossible in the present Continental political culture. Europe has a psychological investment in longer holidays: The fact that they spell national suicide is less important than that they distinguish Europe from the less enlightened Americans.
Many aspects of European life are, indeed, very pleasant: jobs for life, three-week Yuletides, etc. But they're what the environmental crowd would call ''unsustainable development.'' Despite the best efforts of lethargic Scotsmen, it can't be Christmas all year round.
HAPPY NEW YEAR..I love Steyn!
Ah yes. And a couple of years ago thousands of elderly French were left alone and died of heat because of the Flight of the French in August.
I always have to laugh when I hear some Euro chastizing American corporations for their treatment of labor and the fact that Americans don't take month long vacations. They're so completely off-base! Americans enjoy the fruits of their productivity, as the Euro's would if they ever had the chance.
Make it the last friday of October.
Period.
Everyone -employees and employers, kids and parents, students and revelers of all ages- will be much, much happier that way.
Your plan certainly makes sense from a practical standpoint. But as you probably know Halloween is "All Hallow's Eve," and "All Hallow's Day" (All Saints Day) is Nov 1. ......so the change will probably never happen.
another thing:
>in 1863, Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving.
>Franklin Roosevelt set it to the next-to-last Thursday (in order to create a longer Christmas shopping season).
>Public uproar against this decision caused FDR to move Thanksgiving back to the final Thursday two years later.
>in 1941, Thanksgiving was sanctioned by Congress as a legal holiday, always to fall on the fourth Thursday in November.
'sides... Easter Sunday is a floater, too, so there's no bloody excuse even on a religious basis.
Point being: "Holidays" are flexible animals.
I'm with ya. ....and hope it happens.
how would this worthy objective best be pursued and accomplished?
for that matter - how best to force the abandonment of the lunacy called "daylight savings"???
Actually, the buildup starts after Labor Day.
OTOH, reality is pretty hard.
Hopefully, I can get back here to read. bttt!
Realistically, in America there's a significant work slowdown even among people who show up for work during the week before and the week after Christmas.
Scary to think that this time of low productivity is still more productive than the same time period in Europe.
Or wearing traditional dress, and blacks and white checked keffiyeh, suicide-bombing you at the beer garden.
While many here accomplish little on those days, there are also many who accomplish more than normal due to a lack of distractions. May not be as much as when all hands are at work, but it isn't *that* much of a reduction.
I work at a newspaper. The holidays don't stop the paper from going out every day but, just like every place else I've ever worked, there's definitely a lot less going on behind the scenes.
Depends on where you work. I was a gov't contractor for years. The gov't employees' favorite agenda was to give the contractors heavy assignments on Dec. 15 or so, and make the due date Jan. 15, when they would be ready to get back to work.
Then there are the people in the financial industry who have to cope with clients who at the last minute think of tax implications, or the ones in medical professions who have to care for the people who have "use it or lose it" health care benefits.
Never mind retail, travel and tourist workers.
Traditionally, Christmas in Scotland was celebrated on January 6th.
Just a wee quibble. In most businesses, if Christmas falls on Saturday they close that Friday. If it falls on Sunday, they'll close on Monday.
Not true. Most of us think and know about it, but the 12 days is observed religiously (to Epiphany), not the commercial hoopla and is different than Advent.
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