Saturday, December 8, 2018

When the day of holiday is not enough. The Finns and the Eves

Today, I am going to tell you about a characteristic of the Finnish people that I haven't mentioned before.
That is the sort of obsession of Finnish people not just with the holidays but with the day before the holiday itself; the Eve.
The Eve is everything, it means anticipation, excitement, celebration; the holiday itself is feeling sometimes like devoided of any meaning because you know the following day you need to go back to work.
It's just like the feeling of the Friday and Saturday compared with the dullness and bitterness of the Sundays. Nothing cool happens on Sundays, because you know already what is going to happen the following day.
Back to work, back to the usual routine, with the usual projects or worse with a project you seem to be stuck into without any way out.

But if you have never met a Finn, I can tell you that they bring the Eves to a brand new level. So you have the Christmas Eve, the New Year's Eve the Labor Day's Eve, the Midsummer fest's Eve.
Nevertheless, this is sometimes not enough.
Think about it, the whole world is celebrating Christmas and New Year's Eve, so what do they invent? The Eve's Eve.
This means celebrating not only the day before but two days in advance the official day for the holiday.
Those who can, they will take a day off to celebrate Eve's Eve, those who can't, well they try at least to have a shorter day at work.

After 14 years of living in Finland, this seems to me something reasonable and every January, I try to see where I can put my holiday so to keep also Eve's Eves free.
This seems reasonable also since the government decided that there are some holidays which can be moved to the Saturdays/Sundays, so to avoid that workers have too much of free time on their own. Not all, of course, but those minor holidays like All Saint's day is celebrated on the last Saturday of the month, whether it is the 2nd of November or not. Likewise, MidSummer is celebrated the second to last Saturday/Sunday of June (although it should be the 21st of June celebrating the solstice).

This decision doesn't seem to stop Finns from having their days off, so in case those holidays are scheduled on Sundays, they also celebrate on Friday, as the Eve's Eve. It does make sense doesn't it?
It makes us feel like rebels.
 Finnish people are quiet and calm, they do not make any riot, they calml think about the way to fool the rule, so that everybody is happy.
And so I wish you all a great weekend!


3 comments:

  1. I've always felt the hype of the holiday more so before than on the day itself--the culmination.

    ReplyDelete

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