modern phenomena; we die in it. But we don’t always have to put up with it, do we? There are things we can – no, must – resist. This week, Julien Althuisius turns against an outdated phenomenon: too many holidays.
You will probably read this on June 4 or maybe a little later during the Pentecost weekend. Have a nice long weekend. A day off. Enjoy. Do you happen to know what is commemorated at Pentecost and why we celebrate it with 17 million people in the Netherlands? Doesn’t matter. A day off. Have a nice long weekend. Enjoy. Yummy Volkskrant Magazine read. The deadline for this piece was May 16. Now the moment of submission is always well ahead of the publication date, but now it had to be even earlier because Ascension Day was also in between. In theory this is a single day off, but in practice the following day is only taken for convenience. A day off. Enjoy. Much needed too, because the May holiday was already three weeks ago – and it only lasted two weeks.
Now this is by no means an indictment of deadlines – without deadlines and their enforcers, not a single letter would appear on paper. No, the bottom line: we have too many days off in the Netherlands. Or, at the very least, they are extremely unhappily divided. From mid-April it is one long relay of holidays and days off until the summer holidays. Good Friday, Easter Monday, Easter Monday, King’s Day, Liberation Day, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, Whit Monday. All those holidays are often supersized with mandatory days off or ‘study days’ at many schools. Great, of course, if you’re on the velvet of a permanent contract or work in the public sector, but for many self-employed people the period from roughly mid-April to the end of August is one big obstacle course. fuck-how-are-we-going-do-this-again?moments.
And let’s be honest. All those Christian holidays may be nice to have, but no longer of this time. In March, the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau concluded that the Netherlands is no longer a religious country: there are now many more non-believers than believers. In 2019 roughly 35 percent of the Dutch adhered to the Roman Catholic or Protestant faith and that group is only getting smaller. 65 percent do not believe or adhere to a different faith. Isn’t it time for a careful review of all those Christian holidays? Christmas and Easter, nothing wrong with that. Good timing in the year too. But ask an average passerby what happened on Good Friday and he will answer that Jozef discovered that you can also make croquettes in the airfryer.
The total of annual holidays doesn’t have to change, but they do need to be rearranged every once in a while. Between January 1 and July 1, we have a total of nine public holidays. Between July 1 and Christmas there are zero. The Netherlands can do better, must do better. A proposal: we keep Easter, King’s Day and Liberation Day. We will transfer the rest to the other half of the year. For starters, Keti Koti (July 1) should be a national holiday anyway. A referendum can be organized on the remaining days. A holiday in September would not be out of place, to celebrate the equinox – or Arne Slot’s birthday. And in mid-November we could also use a long weekend somewhere to break up that bleak, dark period between the autumn and Christmas holidays. Perhaps twinkle, a sponsored weekend where everyone sits at home and has groceries delivered by a flash courier. But I’m sure there are better ideas.