The Federal Holiday Schedule minus Columbus Day for a subtotal of nine and plus:
Cesar Chavez ( CA )
Malcolm X as a floater ( traded for Columbus Day a couple of decades ago in a moment of more radical politics in the union )
Black Friday
Personal Birthday, taken as a floater.
For a total of 13/year. I can’t complain.
Wait a minute, how come you Americans get more public holidays that some us in the socialist paradise of Europe?
Mind you, they bumped it up to nine days last year here, with a surprised but grateful nation being given the day off to, um, watch the royal wedding, which we definitely all did, honest. And this year they’re doing it again, with another royal thingummy-bob. It’s like they’re stealthily admitting that eight days is a bit stingy; perhaps next year there’ll be another one, maybe Prince Andrew’s Birthday or something. Which I am totally in favour of. He’s a very underrated prince, in my view. I would be prepared to take a day off work at full pay to acknowledge that fact.
New Year’s, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Christmas Day. Plus 5 “floating” holidays (that can be used to cover for, say, Federal holidays that we don’t officially have off).
I’m on a pretty standard schedule.
Depending on which day of the week Christmas falls on, we may get an extra day or two; since Christmas Eve & Christmas were on the weekend, we got Boxing Day off. (Although nobody calls it that here.) We didn’t get any days for New Years this year, when most got January 2nd–but were off MLK day when many others down here weren’t…
When July 4th falls on Saturday or Sunday, we do not get an extra day off. Although there are “floating” holidays & our vacation time is pretty liberal. (If the work isn’t piled too high–& it usually is.)