Head Tale

Our Family on Thanksgiving 2018

We have lots of official (and many unofficial – Halloween anyone?) holidays in our society.  So I thought it might be an interesting thought experiment to try to rank them in terms of how important they are to me.

Obvious disclaimer – how people feel about holidays depends on so many different factors – if you have kids, a “family” holiday might mean more to you then to others.  If you or a family member is a veteran, a holiday like Remembrance Day might rate higher for you than for others.  If you’re religious, certain holidays may have more meaning.  And so on.

So, with that disclaimer out of the way, here’s how I rank the statutory holidays we (typically) celebrate in Saskatchewan:

1. Christmas/Boxing Day (December) – this is the big one for me.  Food, fun, gifts, love, presents, joy, music plus one day to overindulge in all of the above and one day to recover (and try out the new toys!) 😉
2. Canada Day (July) –  The heart of summer begins with kids out of school.    Parades. Fireworks.  BBQ’s & beers.
3. Victoria Day (May) – May long weekend kicks off the summer season, especially for campers who usually start in earnest this weekend.
4. Good Friday/Easter Sunday (March/April) – the best part of these two days is that they’re one of the few times in the year (Christmas/Boxing Day being the other) where you have two stats so close together.
5. New Year’s Eve (January) – the promise of a new year is usually pretty exciting.  In my younger years, this was also one of the biggest party nights of the year. 🙂
6. Saskatchewan Day (August) – summer’s feel so short in Saskatchewan which is why I weight the summer holidays so highly and am also a big fan of adding another stat holiday – National Indigenous Day – in June!
7. Remembrance Day (November) – perhaps the most sombre holiday of the year, this one is a good fit for the cold, dreariness of November (I’m respectful of the day to a point but on November 12, all bets are off and the Xmas music goes on as does the annual battle with Shea about how soon I can set up our Christmas tree!) 🙂
8. Thanksgiving (October) – this is a time for family to gather and enjoy each other’s company while enjoying great food but, just as Valentine’s Day isn’t much of a holiday for single people, Thanksgiving can be a tough holiday for people having a rough year or who feel like they don’t have as much to be thankful for.
9. Labour Day (September) – I’m a big fan of unions and what they do to help working people (whether they’re in unions or not, most workers benefit from the gains of unions – including many stat holidays come to think of it!) But I’m also not a fan of a day that essentially marks the end of summer.
10. Family Day (February) – the newest stat holiday is appreciated for bridging the “no stat holiday” gap between the start of January and March or even April that we used to have.  But it still falls in the middle of winter so isn’t a favourite – although we do tend to go out and do something on this day as a family which is nice (and why I value all statutory holidays so much.)