I do love a good Public Holiday
Common behaviour for a drunk Kiwi
Yes, don’t we all just love Public Holidays. Here in NZ we certainly need them, we don’t have 25 of them like Brazil do so the few we do have we really like to make the most of and get out there and do what we love doing best, binge drinking that is (for the majority anyway). Sometimes these inebriated souls take a moment to remember why they’re getting an extra day off to get tanked but let’s me honest, most of them are just stoked they have a free paid day off to get absolutely trolleyed Friday, Saturday AND Sunday night and feel sorry for themselves on Monday while they look forward to a shortened four day working week.
Usually on the NZ calendar we have ten public holidays, ten holy days for us to look forward to shorter weeks and more time to spend with our friends, mammals, families and philanthropods. This year however, there is a slight change. As some of our public holidays aren’t fixed on certain days of the week ANZAC Day and Waitangi day land on a weekend and we do not get a day off for them at all! I for one will NOT be celebrating their causes this year.
In fact, poor old Waitangi day, that sacred day of the year when every NZ’er gets to dress up like what every other country in the world thinks we look like every day, in grass skirts and crazy face paint (like a cat maybe???) along with pointy weapons, will not be celebrated by giving us a day off until 2012!! So all of you that were hoping to get your freak on this Waitangi day, prancing around the street like some native warrior on the Monday you’ll be very upset to know that you’ll have to do this on your own time during that weekend or just sod it all like I probably will. 
Most NZ'ers dress like this daily
So before you yet again go into your, “Well at least it’s not so bad at the start of the year cos you get a few four day weeks to ease you back in…” speech, be suitably depressed and think again. From our last official Public Holiday on 4 January we have 63 continuous business days with weekends before we get our next national day off!
63 days… you serious, total balls. I never have quite understood why the hell Waitangi day doesn’t qualify for the extra day off if it lands on a weekend, has it not graduated to being a fully fledged holiday?
No doubt there will be some public campaign to help change this by a bunch of facebook monkeys, companies will complain that they can barely handle the extra week off a year we get for annual leave, and nothing will eventuate as most of us are to lazy to stage any sort of protest. Lets not forget that it is in fact the least liked event on the calender for anyone who actually isn’t stuck in a 170 year old rut.
But apparently it’s now more commonly being referred to as “New Zealand Day” so we should definitely get a day off for it shouldn’t we? Australia gets a day off every year no matter what so what gives?!
On the topic of New Zealand Day, I would like to share this quote from George Bernard Shaw: “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.”
That’s pretty cool and true in some ways. It makes me wish I was born in New Zealand real bad though which in turn makes me sad as it usually does.
Waitanga day doesn’t really stand for New Zealand day as in what Australia day or Independence day do. It is a remembrance thing for the signing of the treaty that just happens to be the day New Zealand was born…
Well if NZ was born that day then it’s NZ day really isn’t it? I don’t care, we should get a day off no matter what!