OddThinking

One of my hobbies is explaining to non-Australians the meaning behind Australian holidays.

Australia Day

Monday, January 28th is a holiday this year. It’s Australia Day!

(Well, actually, Australia Day is the 26th, but we get Monday off because otherwise we’d miss out because it’s on a Saturday.)

So, we celebrate Australia Day because January 26th was the day that Australia became a nation…

No, wait, that was January 1st, 1901. That’s Federation Day. We don’t celebrate that – it is New Year’s Day. So, January 26th must have been when Australia was discovered by Captain Cook.

When I say discovered, of course the Australian Aborigines have been around for 40,000-odd years first, I mean discovered by a European.

Wait, no, Willem Janszoon beat Cook by more than 150 years. I guess I mean discovered by a British subject. We celebrate when Australia was finally discovered by someone who really “mattered”.

Wait, but that’s not right. Captain Cook arrived on April 19th, 1770.

Oh, right, I remember now. Australia Day celebrates the arrival of the first convicts!

Yay, Australia Day!

ANZAC Day

ANZAC Day (April 25th) is a bit like Veteran’s Day in the US. We all get a day off to remember the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs), particularly those that fought in Gallipoli, Turkey, starting on April 25th, 1915.

It was an important campaign for Australia. It was the first major military action for an army under the Australian flag (which, of course, wasn’t adopted officially for another 30-odd years.)

And what a military action it was. The campaign lasted for 9 months before (apparently due to poor planning) the ANZACs were forced to finally give up on Gallipoli. It was an horrific loss for the Allies, with 7,500 Australians losing their lives (amongst almost 100,000 dead in total.)

So, we celebrate Australia’s worst-ever military defeat, with ritualised gambling, drinking and oatmeal biscuits.

Yay, ANZAC Day!

Boxing Day

Boxing Day falls on December 26th.

Unless, of course, if it falls on a weekend, when is moved to the December the 28th.

Unless it falls on a Monday, when it is moved to December 27th.

Let me start again. Boxing Day falls on December 26th, 57% of the time.

I have no idea what Boxing Day means. Something to do with cricket matches in Melbourne, I think. Someone told me once it was the day you put all your Christmas gifts back into their boxes to get a refund.

Yay, Boxing Day!

Queen’s Birthday

So, Australia still has a queen. Yeah, she’s the Queen of England, but she’s also the Queen of Australia, right? So we celebrate her birthday. The English don’t care about her birthday, but we do, okay?. It’s important to us. Every June we say “Happy birthday, Lizzie!” and take a day off. Any every year, she says “What? You’re a bit late. My birthday is April 21st.” We don’t get the phone message until Tuesday, because we always take a Monday off. That’s when we say “April 21st? Yeah, that’s too close to ANZAC Day, and Easter and stuff. We need a day off in June, so that’s when we celebrate it.”

Labour Day

Yes, okay, I get the irony – we celebrate Labour Day by not labouring.

But what are we celebrating?

One web-site claimed Labour Day originally celebrated the Labour Day riots, which seemed to a lovely confusion of cause-and-effect.

Many people think it is the 8-hour day, 40-hour week. They forget that the five-day work week was a later invention. (This was pointed out to me once, and my web-searching has brought up some dubious claims, but this one seems consistent with the historical time-line.)

So, we are celebrating the change to a 48-hour week, by having a (28..32)-hour one.

In many countries it is celebrated on May 1st, but see the argument above about the number of holidays then. In Australia, every state decides for itself when to celebrate it. Sometime in October is popular – always a Monday though.

Yay, Labour Day.

Easter

I am not going to touch the origin story, but just want to point out: Yes, we get Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Monday off.

Christmas Day, New Year’s Day

We are consistent here with every western, predominantly Christian country, so these are kind of boring to explain.

Not Holidays

For the American readers, no, we don’t celebrate July 4th or Thanksgiving. Many people eat turkey at Christmas, which always struck me as a rather modern (con)fusion.

Halloween isn’t really celebrated, but it is starting to become an excuse for a fancy-dress party. Trick-or-treaters are still rare, and the parents of trick-or-treating kids are viewed with some disdain. I suspect that will change over the next 20 years.

Happy holidays!