By law here, they can’t open Good Friday. The place is dead – well, worse that the usual dead it can be.
I think Australia has the same restrictions as New Zealand and the government’s attitude is that, even if is a pain…bad luck. I recall that last Anzac Day some shops tried to get dispensation and were told “no” in a very terse manner.
In fact in Australia you can’t buy takeaway alcohol on Good Friday or Christmas Day even from places that are open.
The 3.5 days shops are closed by law here are, effectively, “sacred” for either religious reasons (Christmas, Easter) or to honour our war dead (Anzac Day). It’s fairly cut-and-dried. All other public holidays are secular.
Wow, I had no idea. That would really piss me off too!
Eostre was an Anglo-Saxon deity. She predates the return of Christianity to Britain, but antedates Christ.
Anyway, the festival of Easter has clear antecedents in the Roman Lupercalia and the Spring Equinox.
Well, most of the shops here were closed for Easter. Certainly, the streets of Minneapolis were deserted.
I work for a group of hospitals that claims to be faith based(Christian).
Easter is not a recognized holiday for us in terms of vacation time, extra pay etc.
go figure–Tgiving, Christmas, July 4th, Memorial Day and Labor Day are…
I had the best Easter–we spent it in the car, returning from Minnesota–with a stop in Wisconsin. It was nice. I didn’t have to go to my inlaws and eat dried out lamb and ham (you have to work to get ham dry, but every year, she does it…).
EB came to the kids in the hotel room–a small bit of candy and one silly toy.
I could do this every year. Kinda missed the church service, but seriously, I had the most relaxed Easter in 15 years.
I say Easter is where you find it.
Plethora of comments-
I’ve worked at WlMrt for 16 years- we’ve always been open Easter Sunday. Only close at 6 pm C’mas eve till 6 am Dec 26.
Candy fish are on the shelf in mass production. However, my town (Madison) has a confectionary which makes a candy fish which is supposedly nationally renown.
The Eostre connection isn’t definite- I think tho our source for that is the Christian chronicler The Venerable Bede. The formerly Armstrongist “Worldwide Church of God”, in justifying its tolerance to Easter, noted that the name origins may well be from the Germanic word for “Sunrise”, which is obviously similar to the Goddess name. (Btw, the really reaching version of the story is that the root name is from the MidEastern Ishtar.)