Christian holidays

[Lechasseur]

Easter Sunday
Easter Monday
Ascension
Pentecost
Assumption (in practice made a holiday by Napoleon because it was also his birthday, it probably wouldn't be one otherwise)
All Saints
Christmas

[Cokeland Saxton]

Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Reformation Day, and Christmas

[dead0man]

Only Christmas Day. Instead of religious holidays, we have various holidays in the grand American tradition of pandering to electorally important ethnic groups, such as Casimir Pulaski Day, César Chávez Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Robert E. Lee Day (honoring, respectively, Poles, Mexicans, Irish & racists)

these are all state holidays though and no one gets more than one of them off (unless they move at the right time(s) I suppose).  Only Italians get a federal holiday for reasons I still don't understand.  Probably because the Italians are an emotionally fragile people.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Happy Epiphany!

Especially to the Ukrainians, who cannot celebrate the solemnity of their highest feast day today.



"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you." Isaiah 60:1

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

С рождеством!

[LabourJersey]

Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas and Boxing Day in Scotland. Christmas only became a public holiday in 1958.

Interesting! There seem to be differences between English and Scottish holidays.

The main Christian denomination in Scotland is the Presbyterian Church, which was (technically still is) deeply Calvinist. As I understand it, one of the tenets of Calvinism is to keep the Sabbath holy, and just the Sabbath. Other Christian holidays that aren't tied to the Sabbath were viewed to be unbiblical (December 25th isn't mentioned in the Bible, after all) and therefore heretical.

Calvinists also saw celebrating Christmas to be a Catholic thing, too. The Anglican Church maintained more catholic elements in their worship, and returned to embracing their Catholic heritage pre-reformation in the mid 19th century (that's partially why so much of modern Christmas traditions have their origins in 19th century Britain).

[Oldiesfreak1854]

As far as I know, Christmas is the only one recognized as a federal holiday in the United States, but I'm not sure whether Michigan or my hometown/home county has any of the others.  I personally think that Good Friday and Christmas Eve should be optional holidays for government employees if they aren't already.

[Skill and Chance]

As far as I know, Christmas is the only one recognized as a federal holiday in the United States, but I'm not sure whether Michigan or my hometown/home county has any of the others.  I personally think that Good Friday and Christmas Eve should be optional holidays for government employees if they aren't already.

I would strongly suggest that Thanksgiving should be on this list.  The roots are more explicitly Christian than a couple of these and it's almost as old as the Reformation. 

EDIT: This is Lincoln's original Thanksgiving proclamation, marking the first time it was observed federally.

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

That's 7 explicit references to a monotheist God not counting "the year of our Lord" and the bolded is an explicitly Christian conception of God. 

[Oldiesfreak1854]

As far as I know, Christmas is the only one recognized as a federal holiday in the United States, but I'm not sure whether Michigan or my hometown/home county has any of the others.  I personally think that Good Friday and Christmas Eve should be optional holidays for government employees if they aren't already.

I would strongly suggest that Thanksgiving should be on this list.  The roots are more explicitly Christian than a couple of these and it's almost as old as the Reformation. 

I agree.  Thanksgiving is arguably even more of a Christian holiday in modern times than Christmas, and almost as much as Easter.  And it already is a paid holiday in American anyhow.  (Perhaps some of the Canadians here can vouch for whether their Thanksgiving Day, on the same date as Columbus Day, is a paid holiday there.)

[Skill and Chance]

As far as I know, Christmas is the only one recognized as a federal holiday in the United States, but I'm not sure whether Michigan or my hometown/home county has any of the others.  I personally think that Good Friday and Christmas Eve should be optional holidays for government employees if they aren't already.

I would strongly suggest that Thanksgiving should be on this list.  The roots are more explicitly Christian than a couple of these and it's almost as old as the Reformation. 

I agree.  Thanksgiving is arguably even more of a Christian holiday in modern times than Christmas, and almost as much as Easter.  And it already is a paid holiday in American anyhow.  (Perhaps some of the Canadians here can vouch for whether their Thanksgiving Day, on the same date as Columbus Day, is a paid holiday there.)

For Christmas, I agree, at least post-WWII.  However, % observing Easter tracks much more closely with % Christian.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

They aren't calender accurate because Jesus was born in August not Late December but we know Birth of Jesus is followed by Passover and Resurrection and then Pentacost and that follows our lives because when a loved one died we think of them as the Holy Spirit and we think we will always again meet them someday

[Skill and Chance]

They aren't calender accurate because Jesus was born in August not Late December but we know Birth of Jesus is followed by Passover and Resurrection and then Pentacost and that follows our lives because when a loved one died we think of them as the Holy Spirit and we think we will always again meet them someday

Christmas most likely developed out of an earlier tradition that Christ was conceived on March 25th.  Birthdays were unimportant in ancient Israel, but very important in ancient Greece, so as Christianity spread, more emphasis was placed on celebrating a birthday.  However, celebrating the conception of Christ (Feast of the Annunciation) was originally more important, which makes some sense because that was the miracle.

[Tintrlvr]

How does Christmas currently have 102.3% of poll respondents??

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

How does Christmas currently have 102.3% of poll respondents??

That's the result of celestial powers.

[UWS]

Christmas and Easter