Places and their Holidays

Confession: daylight savings has always managed to confuse me. It always seems to approach when I least expect it, I never know which way it goes and I’m still confused as to how it makes more or less daylight. Then I moved to Arizona – and there’s no daylight savings here. The state stays on Mountain Standard Time year round. Well, except for the Navajo Nation, which does go onto daylight savings (because it spreads across three states). Except for the Hopi Nation, which is completely surrounded by the Navajo Nation. But in most of the state the time of day is the time of day year round.

There’s a link between time and place. From Mothers’ Days to Independence days, every community has its own versions of the same celebrations. Some, like Christmas, are celebrated on the same day worldwide while others like Father’s Day can vary by region. There’s even a few that do both: there’s the New Years that restarts everyone’s calendar year and then there’s the Chinese New Years and the Water Festivals and Rosh Hashanah.

Switching hemispheres means even switching seasons and as we change places, we change holidays too. Sometimes we even go to a place because of their Mardis Gras or Carnival.

For me, that means spending Christmas at my parents house includes television ads about summer blowout sales for swimwear and other summertime wares, though the temperatures may be nearly equal in summer Taupo and winter Phoenix. Either way, my Kansas winter coats haven’t left their box in the years since we’ve left.

For my parents, the relocation has been longer and deeper. My mother’s birthday is now in fall. And my father has started doing something he never did before. He spends each April 25 walking with other veterans.

How do travel and holidays relate to you – do you go somewhere every Thanksgiving or have you ever dreamed of being somewhere on a certain day? What holidays would you carry with you wherever you go?

Poppies 1
photo credit : James Pratley

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  1. Chrystall’s avatar

    I’m getting used to a whole new set of holidays here on Tortola. Some I think of as very British, like the Queen’s birthday. Others are very, very Virgin Islands, like Territory Day, when we celebrate the incremental step away from the UK and toward independence; or the birthday of H. Lavity Stoutt, the territory’s first and longest-serving chief minister. You wind up learning a lot about a place from what they celebrate.

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    1. rzemansky’s avatar

      New Zealand seems to have a similar mix of British and Island events!

      Reply

    2. Trish’s avatar

      My favorite holiday ever is the Balinese Hindu festival called Nyepi: first you build huge papier-mache effigies of evil spirits, then you parade them through the streets making as much noise as possible, then you burn them, and the next day you must be completely silent all day so the monsters can’t find their way back. Everything about Nyepi is wonderful.

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      1. rzemansky’s avatar

        Hmmm… I think I’d do well with everything except the staying silent a whole day – I may have to try that a few times before I succeed! Though thwarting evil monsters is a pretty major motivation…

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      2. Denise Shungu’s avatar

        I remember my son’s description of celebrating the Ethiopean New Year (different calendar from ours). He attended the big celebration in the center of the capital. When it finished everyone had to get home quickly before the mini vans stopped running. People piled in and sat on top of each other 3 deep. A number were pretty drunk and singing ever so often. There were also 2 sheep in the van that would become someone’s feast the next day. It was a noisy, cramped, and somewhat smelly ride! He made it to Brazil at the time of Carnivale and was able to march in the parade with the group of dancers who were the second place winners that year. His college roommate’s brother was teaching in a school where the leader of that group had children attending. I assume that he still has the shirt he wore.

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        1. rzemansky’s avatar

          There’s something so fresh and thrilling about the energy and anticipation of new years celebrations! And that crowded quick home and the scarcity of transportation reminds me of trying to find a taxi out of central Dubai in 2010 :)

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        2. Denise Shungu’s avatar

          it is also fun to celebrate imported holidays in this country. In Cary, North Carolina there is a yearly Diwali celebration in a park with an amphitheater. Local groups dance and sing in the afternoon and Bollywood people perform in the evening. Vendors sell clothing and statues from India and also books about India in English for children of immigrants to learn about the old country. Local Indian restaurants sell dinner. A small building displays photos and explanations of the diversity in India as well as art work which varies each year.
          Beside people watching, my favorite thing is to get a box of Indian candy. It is mostly milk-based, lots of sugar, a few with lentil flour called gram flour.

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