Saturday, January 15, 2011

This doesn't exist in Jordan: Make-up holidays

You know how if Christmas falls on a Saturday, like this year, you get Friday off? Not so here in Jordan. When holidays fall over the weekend you just get screwed out of them. There is no make-up! No make-up? How can they do this to people?! I am not a fan.

One thing I am a fan of however are all of the unexpected holidays. I'll just be sitting in my office and one of my coworkers will say, "you know that this Thursday is a holiday, right?". Oh what joy, what bliss, I did not know that it was a holiday. It's like a snow day without the snow! In the U.S., one knows all the holidays and when to expect them. Sometimes the minor bank holidays (I'm talking to you, Columbus Day) creep up on you but usually it's a countdown to that auspicious day, with the pleasure of anticipation for special plans made to take advantage of the three-day weekend. (But then of course there's the pain of waiting for the next one to come around; President's Day is the worst, because you know it will be 3.5 long months until Memorial Day!)

The dark side of this new-holiday-feeling however is that it comes at the expense of the usual holidays. Thanksgiving? Nixed. MLK Day? No way. Can't I just have both, pretty please?

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