# Why is The Day After New Year's Day a holiday in Scotland and New Zealand?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-day-after-new-years-day-a-holiday-in-scotland-and-new-zealand/523464>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [January 3, 2010, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-day-after-new-years-day-a-holiday-in-scotland-and-new-zealand/523464 "2010-01-03T01:54:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-day-after-new-years-day-a-holiday-in-scotland-and-new-zealand/523464/21 "2010-01-05T17:34:25Z")

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When I was growing up in Coventry in the 1950s most factories worked on Good Friday but took the following Tuesday off as a holiday. There was good reason for that but unfortunately I now cannot find out what that was.

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**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-day-after-new-years-day-a-holiday-in-scotland-and-new-zealand/523464/22 "2010-01-05T19:19:10Z")

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> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> New Zealanders have told me that New Zealand is heavily influenced by Scots culture. If that isn’t true, that’s only because parts of the country are and parts aren’t greatly influenced by Scots culture. Argue it amongst yourselves, not with me.

Not arguing here, just stating that because the January 2nd holiday here is relatively recent, and there would be few if any pieces of legislation (such as those which determine holidays) based on Scottish immigrant culture, our day-off is unlikely to be related to that in Scotland.

If you’d spoken to other Kiwis, **Wendell Wagner** , they could just as easily have told you NZ has heavy English influences, or Irish, or Polynesian or even Australian.

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