cross-posted from: https://retrofed.com/c/ask@piefed.social/p/2109773/what-are-your-ideas-for-public-holidays-that-can-be-celebrated-by-everybody

A lot of holidays are associated with religion and colonialism, but I think it would be a lot better if we had holidays that were universally recognised regardless of your beliefs.

Take my home country of Australia. You of course have the Christian originated holidays of Easter and Christmas, and Australia Day is awful (it's pretty much celebrating the colonialism and slaughter of the indigenous peoples of Australia).

New Years should stay, it's universally recognised for everybody using the Gregorian calendar, and memorial days for those who have died in war is also important to keep (like ANZAC day!), as well as the various independence days

Personally, I would propose the revival of the summer and winter solstices (the longest and shortest days of the year, reversed for the southern hemisphere), and May 8th as the new Australia Day (mate!)

What holidays do you think should be universally celebrated?

https://www.britannica.com/topic/ostracism

Labour day is celebrated by Australia by almost everyone taking it off. So there is that one.

I'm in favour of ditching the royal birthday for a friends and family day. Make it a Friday so we can shorten it to FFF ( sorry Factorio)

Labor day (1 may) is the first that comes to mind. Days like mother's day could work, but they're always on sunday.

11 November and 2 September as the end of WW 1 & 2 would apply for most of the world, but maybe that would only encourage people to start new world wars in order to get more holidays.

I propose twelve holidays: 1/1, 2/2, 3/3, 4/4, 5/5, 6/6, 7/7, 8/8, 9/9, 10/10, 11/11, and 12/12.

The ends of WWI and II depend on countries… and so does mother’s day.

Love it!

Definitely in favour of abandoning the celebration of some old monarch's birthday.

Alive Day: can be celebrated any day and by anyone around the world, so long as they are living.

What has that to do with holidays?

The 11th of November is Remembrance day (the whole minute of silence on the 11th minute, hour, day, and month thing was a big thing at my old school)

11/11 is also a big holiday in East Asia, Pocky Day in Japan, Peppero Day in Korea (both because of the resemblance to the tasty stick biscuits), and Singles Day in China (the 1s represent unmarried individuals), all three of which are huge shopping days for Asian malls (similar to Black Friday, but combined with the hyper consumerism of the Asian markets)

Especially with our looming climate apocalypse I think Arbor Day would be fun if it was reframed as a day for hanging out outside, doing volunteer work for local parks. Make it fun and educational

Similarly International Workers' Day (or May Day) needs to be more seriously celebrated until we reach utopia status

I just realised that while here in Spain almost all holidays are after one saint or another, I've never thought of them as religious holidays (outside of holy week). To me and most people I know it is just the name of the holiday or festival.

The solstices and equinoxes seem like a good natural choice. Various cultures past and present have celebrated them but since they're natural events experienced by everyone they can be culturally neutral. They happen even independently of whatever calendar system you use and are important milestones of the year.

The 11th of November is Remembrance day (the whole minute of silence on the 11th minute, hour, day, and month thing was a big thing at my old school)

We have it already, at 11:11h, but not for remembrance, but it marks the begin of the carnival season

I think we need more global holidays. Right now we have New Year's and... I think that's kind of it. April Fools' Day had a bit of momentum at the start of the internet but I feel like it lost something as it got chewed up and digested by the corporations that control so much of the internet now.

Some ideas, off the top of my head:

1. Friends' Day: tell your friends you care about them. An opportunity to message someone you haven't talked to in a while, just to let them know you still think about them. A time to meet up with your local friends too. I've had a few Friendsgiving get-togethers over the years and I find them highly preferable to the born-into-family version of Thanksgiving Day.

2. Neighbor Day: Have a block party with the people who live around you, or get to know someone on the other side of the world. A time for the world to recognize that we're all in this together so we might as well get to know each other.

3. Big Problem Brainstorm: we can't all focus on all the big problems all the time. I think it's good that we all take breaks. But, I think we should have one day a year where we all take the day, pick a problem, and try to make it better. We don't all have to work on the same thing, but we all pick something. Energy crisis, food crisis, housing crisis, environmental crisis, just pick a thing. Maybe you pick a problem and find out you like working on it, maybe you meet some people and decide to form a group to work on it long term. Maybe you don't, and you just spend one day more than you would have thinking about how to make the world a little better. I think it would be cool.

4. Carnival: I know we already have this one in parts of the world, but I think it would be cool if we all celebrated it all at the same time. Global Carnival. Sounds dope.

5. People who don't usually post day (better name TBD): Everyone who talks on the internet the other 364 days of the year just chills for a second and lets the rest of the world talk.

Seems like a lot of work just to get a day off.

Oh, you don't want a holiday where the publicly voted and most despised person in your city/country has to leave for 10 years?

Never thought about it.

Maybe something for found families. We’re have so many traditional familial relationship days, but nothing for the family you made along the way. The friends who became brothers and sisters, and the kids you “adopted” along the way. Stuff like that.

Maybe a no-tech day. Call it Disconnect Day. Make it on a weekend so you’re not taking the piss outta bankers and such, and obviously exempt medicine, but everyone else is frowned upon for looking at any screen.

Was it that hard to elaborate just a little?

No, that's a terrible idea for a holiday

Crazy hair day

Wyld Stallyns day

A day to remember that we must first be excellent to each other then we can party on, dude.

Once a year, for one glorious day, it’s “hunt a billionaire” day! Everybody gets the day off work and is allowed ONE tag (per individual). Any prizes’ estates are liquidated and awarded to a charity of the hunter’s choice.

The end of the counties involvement depends on the country, the end of the war does not. For mother's day there is an internationally recognized date with some countries using a different date.

Nothing can be celebrated by everyone. Even pizza isn't universally liked and appreciated.

Everyone loves pizza.

It's pineapple on pizza that we're divided about.

And they should. Australia currently has the Easter spring festival in autumn

I have some ideas:

• first Friday of May

• fist Monday and Tuesday of June (long weekend! classic)

• last Friday of September

• first Monday of December

July 26, anniversary of the Erfurt Latrine Disaster, when in 1184 around sixty nobles fell through a collapsed floor and drowned in a pool of excrement.

I'll agree to number five if those of us who lack the natural ability to not be interrupted all the time get the opposite in return. While they post, the rest of us can speak.

I think it should be celebrated by 60 of today's "nobles" going through the same. As much as Musk wants to go down in flames with Trump, having them go down i poo would be much more satisfying to the rest of us.

God forbid you think critically about something without being led around by the hand, but thanks for the interaction and opinion, I suppose.

Solstices and equinoxes. And ideally the mid points between them. It's been one of the best parts of my paganism to just feel in touch with the year as it goes by like that, but you don't need to be pagan for it.

Baking some bread in early August because summer is halfway over is nice. Having a mid spring and Halloween bonfire is nice. Lighting candles for midwinter is great for the mental health in the gloomiest time of year.

I think May Day will be even more important once we win. But also the events that made it international workers day happened because it was already the mid spring holiday with deep pagan community roots, so it's worth also taking time that day to smell a flower and maybe gather over a fire with friends and comrades

Again! What are you talking about? Other people don't share your train of thought, your conclusions are not obvious to everybody.

Your idea for a holiday is terrible because is based on hate, and punishment. What can go wrong?

Wonderful, thanks again for the input. I'm sure your name wouldn't appear on many of those shards of broken pottery.

Ironically, soltices and equinoxes don't really matter in tropical countries are we are not affected much by them. I would still love to have those as holidays because why not.

It's pineapple on pizza that we're divided about.

I'm convinced that whole thing is a psyop by either the government or a marketing agency to see how intensely tribalized and indignant people can get over something so trivial. Lol

...it's an amazing combination and if someone disagrees they don't have to have it lol. :p

Maybe a no-tech day. Call it Disconnect Day.

I like this as kindof an extension to Earth Hour on Earth Day. The idea being if a lot of non-essential electrical stuff goes unused for an hour at the same time, it produces a positive impact.

No screens at all would be a bit of a drag though, when we live in a society (lol) that has been so massively fragmented that this is primarily how many people can communicate.

...Maybe a zero media consumption day. Chats only? That'd be neat.

Sorry I'm just expanding on your idea, I like it. 🌎

but maybe that would only encourage people to start new world wars in order to get more holidays.

LOL...well maybe we can all unite and wage a global war vs. our bosses to get more holidays? :D

so long as they are living.

For everyone else, see: Dia de los Muertos.

(Whispers)

...I agree though as a concept in a polite society, "blame it all on the most unpopular person and make them get lost" day feels like it'd be stressful and rooted in mean-spiritedness. XD

You get the day off, that's already worth celebrating. No need to care about the history behind the holiday.

…it’s an amazing combination and if someone disagrees they don’t have to have it lol. :p

How much did the government pay you to say that?

What did ostriches ever do to you?

Nothing... Allegedly.

I've always lived in 4 seasons land and never thought about how wild it is that some fairly tropical ancient societies tracked the solstices and equinoxes… and apparently thought the Aztecs and Sumerians were tropical because the bias of habitable land towards the northern hemisphere continues to fuck with my mind as to just how intense it is. What the fuck do you mean only 4 countries even reach the southern temperate zone, and Australia only barely so. All of Europe, most of the US, and like half of China and the middle east are in the northern one…

Yeah, the subtropics screw with my sense of temperature, weather, and time. The fact that 40% of people live in the tropics does dampen making global holidays of the solar events that are so significant to those of us temperate zone folks and are pretty noticeable to the semitropical folks even more than the fact that the Argentinians, South Africans, and Kiwis are celebrating the opposite ones of most temperate zoners. Or the fact that the Brazilians, Congolese, and Indonesians will be celebrating both in different parts of their country.

But yeah, I still do think it's worth it because it celebrates the earth and its cycles and you can put local flair on it however you want to celebrate the way the global cycles apply to your area. And looking it up, two of the half season holidays correspond within a day to the start of the Wet/Dry seasons, so all the more reason to have all 8