Holiday Season

Holiday season has arrived in Denmark and I'm not talking about Christmas and New Years. Easter kicks it off with a 4-5 day weekend and the rest of the public holidays follow suit.

It starts with Store Bededag or General Prayer Day the 4th Friday after Easter. A day that consolidates a bunch of holy days into one big (or store) day of reflection. Also known as a day when a lot of Danes get confirmed.

40 days after Easter there is Kristi Himmelfartsdag or Ascension Day, which typically turns into two days. I have to be honest, anything with 'fart' in the middle of the name is sort of hard to take seriously as a native English speaker.

The Spring holiday bonanza stops 7 weeks after Easter when the Danes celebrate Pinsedag or Whit Sunday, recognized on Monday. To sum up, there are approximately 6 public holidays between May 1st and June 5th, the last being Constitution Day in Denmark.

For a country that has proclaimed themselves as people to not be very religious, they sure have a lot of publicly recognized holidays that are based around church holidays. No judgment, just a reflection. How apropos!