Holidays and Cultural Differences

[ellarien]

There are some differences between the US and the UK that take a while to appreciate. For instance, there's the whole business of holidays.



In England (I think Scotland is different; I'm not sure about Wales and Northern Ireland) the public, or 'bank' holidays are: New Year's Day; Good Friday, Easter Monday; May Day (celebrated the first Monday in May); Spring Bank Holiday (last Monday in May); August Bank Holiday (last Monday in August); Christmas and Boxing Day (the day after Christmas). The religious-origin ones are obvious, but when people over here ask me what the others are for, I mostly have to say that they aren't for anything, they're just a day off. (I suppose May Day -- a relatively recent addition to the canon -- does have significance for some, and Spring Bank Holiday used to be Whit Monday and celebrated with outings to the countryside by the urban working poor.) In my childhood, none of them except Christmas had any great significance other than as days, embedded in longer school holidays, when the shops were closed, there was little public transport, and it was pretty much impossible to go anywhere or do anything.

The US, on the other hand, has a dozen or so named holidays, each with its own significance, many of them with their own color schemes and merchandise. Some of them mean more to some groups than others, obviously, but they're all woven into the culture and come with their particular advertizing and news coverage. As an outsider without readily-available family, I think of them as shopping holidays and non-shopping (or 'family' ) holidays, but mostly as a chance to catch up on housework. (I don't think I've ever quite dared to ask whether July 4th comes under shopping or non-shopping. I do remember spending it once working from home, and well-nigh crippling myself by sitting at the laptop for most of the day.)

The other interesting thing is that the British, given a tradition associated with a particular date or time of year, will happily stretch it out over weeks; if we had 4th of July fireworks there'd be a non-stop barrage from the preceding to the following weekend, at least. Americans, on the other hand, keep their holidays much more tightly contained; no-one goes trick-or-treating the weekend before Halloween, for instance.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Fourth of July is an admirable holiday for eating in restaurants that are always too crowded. You'll need to check whether they're open first, but many are, and most people are off grilling out rather than eating in restaurants, so it's much easier to get seated. (Memorial Day is also like this.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there is a nonstop barrage of fireworks from the weekend before to the weekend after in many areas. The dog has been going slightly nuts from it since Thursday night. It's even worse in Omaha -- my grandparents have often made wry references to moving to Beirut for the peace and quiet the week or fortnight before the Fourth.

[ellarien]

Ah. We're mostly spared that here, as private fireworks are banned for fire safety reasons. My mother, on the other hand, complains of Guy Fawkes fireworks from early October until mid-November. I found them particularly nervewracking when I was living in inner London the year of the last IRA bombing campaign.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In Omaha it would start with high school graduations in mid-to-late May and would start to taper in mid-June, but then would rebound to a climax lasting a few days after the 4th. But there haven't been many terrorist troubles in Omaha, so that aspect of it is absent.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

It has got worse over recent years, partly due to the large Hindu population in some areas, and the fact that Dwali (spell?) with its own tradition of fireworks covers much the same period as the 5th November celebrations.

[ellarien]

I suspect the proliferation of Chinese firework shops has something to do with it too, though this could be a response to increased demand.