Holidays

This is a strange country we live in, but I think I remarked it a few times already. There is a constitution that determines most of the official holidays amongst other things.

When one looks carefully one can see that there is no religious holiday at all. That is not because the founding fathers were atheists. It is because they wanted to separate chuch and state, at least that is the explanation we are given.

Hard to believe because in those days being an atheist was not very fashionable. On the other hand, the founding fathers were very likely pretty relogious. So God fearing that keeping slaves was really in accordance with the Bible. So they believed.

Now back to the holidays. If one looks at all the days that are officially observed Christmas is the only one that comes close to being a religious observance. I don't think they call it the celebration for the birth of Jesus they just call it Christmas. No more, no less. In the Soviet times it was called Father Winter.

The funny situation about this whole thing is that the New York Stock Exchange observes Good Friday. So do a many other countries. Most of those same countries also observe Easter Monday as a general holiday. Australia observes Good Friday and Easter Monday thus having a nice four-day weekend. And, nobody is complaining.

The same applies to the second day of Christmas. Many of the Christian world celebrates Christmas Day and the day after. But not here. We are not permitted to do that because that is a religious holiday and that is a no, no!

I can see that point now. In this country there are so many different nationalities and even more religions that to observe each one would leave no time for work. But back in the days of the founding fathers that was not the case. And, I don't think they had the foresight when the Constitution was written.

If every holiday for every religion would officially be observed we would run out of days before the year is up. With that reasoning I can see that nothing is being observed and that way nobody can complain that they are being left out.

But it is still peculiar that while the entire world celebrates we are sitting on our behind like nothing is going on.

Here is a separate thought that has nothing to do with what I wrote. Today I was driving home when I saw something that made me think.

I saw a mother leading her son home from school. There was nothing unusual about this. It was a little boy that needed the mother to look after him. The thing was that the mother was dressed from head to toe in niqab. That is a black garment that covers the entire person while leaving a slit for the eyes only.

What it made me think was how did the little boy knew she was his mother?