Catholic holidays – perks of living abroad
One thing I have never complained about during my time in Chile is the abundance of Catholic holidays. We get plenty of days off down here, and while some of them like independence day or Christmas are celebrated in many countries, some are all thanks to good old Jesús Cristo.
Today, for example, was one of those Catholic holidays I had no clue about before moving to Chile: the Assumption of Mary. Now, I grew up in the church. It wasn’t a Catholic church, but it was still a church. And I was most certainly not aware that people got a day off in honor of Mary’s body going up to heaven. Thank you, Chile!
I will admit to being slightly less impressed by how holidays are done here in Chile. In the US, we tend to move holidays like Presidents’ Day around to fall on a Monday or Friday because three-day weekends are the best. In Chile, it depends on…I don’t even know.
St. Peter and Paul Day is movable, but Assumption of Mary day is not. This means when it falls on a Wednesday, you get a random day off in the middle of the week. Not too shabby, since it breaks things up into two two-day mini-weeks, although it doesn’t allow for travel the way a long weekend would. But when it falls on a Saturday or Sunday? Tough luck, you missed your day off this year.
I would also appreciate a guide to store closings. On the big Catholic holidays, like Christmas and Easter (and, of course, dieciocho), everything’s shut down. On a day like today, however, you’ll usually find big supermarkets and malls open, which is nice for those of us who don’t work at supermarkets or malls and want to run some errands (what? shoe-buying is an important to-do). But there are a couple holidays that seem to fall in between major and minor, and it’s always frustrating to make plans only to find out things are closed.
Of course, this last one may highlight a cultural difference more than anything else: crazy, type-A gringa vs. chilled out, make no plans for your day off chileno. I will let you guess who’s who in my household. But however we choose to celebrate them, Catholic holidays are a welcome break from the daily grind, even – and perhaps especially – if you’re not at all Catholic.
I was always jealous of my Jewish friends for the same reason: They get SO many holidays! Not even remotely fair (oh yeah…except for that whole fasting part).
Yup, I was jealous too, but I think that’s because in my mind they just got a day off to play, not to sit in synagogue and fast. I’ll take these guiltless Catholic (oxymoron?) days off for everyone, thanks!
Such a good point. I always say that your ideal job would be to work in the US for a Christian company and be Jewish. You’d get the best of both worlds. I didn’t realize the Assumption of Mary was such a big deal in Chile, but I do hear that Latin America places much more emphasis on the Virgin Mary than many other cultures.
I think the absolute best job would be working for the US Embassy here in Chile – you get Chilean and US holidays. Clearly I need a career change!
Thank you, Jesus! Literally in your case. When I used to teach, each of the different schools had various holidays in addition to the regular ones. Fair Day? Yes! Stock Show Day? Hell yes!
Haha, I have never lived anywhere that Stock Show Day would be a thing – but it sounds like a great excuse for a day off!
Who can complain? A free day off is always welcome in my house too. I did not know that it was such a big deal either in Chile…hope you found a nice pair of shoes
Haha, I actually stayed away from the shoes this time. Although I did head to a mall to see a movie!
The situation is similar here in Spain, as it is also a country with very strong Catholic traditions. And I feel exactly the same: no complains here.
I would guess most of the Latin countries are similar – more holidays for us!
Since I don’t have a real job I just never know when there are holidays until I’ll randomly go out on a Friday that’s feriado and be like, “Hmmm, something’s off here. Where are all the people and why is the Lider closed?”
I may eventually get there since my job’s all international now, but for this one I decided to take the afternoon off. When in Santiago, do as the Santiaguinos do?
After 12 years in the US, I still miss the 30+ holidays a year in Colombia!!! Its not fair to wait until from Jan 1st until the end of May for a paid off Monday! Only banks and schools have MLK and president’s day. I do love thanksgiving since I don’t do anything w my family and i can take a week Off using only 3 vacation days! it is international low season so traveling out of the country that week is the best!
That’s lucky – I would never want to travel over Thanksgiving because my family has a big get together. I miss it more than Christmas now that I’m in Chile! But it’s definitely a good opportunity to travel if you don’t have family plans.
We get a few religious holidays here in Norway too – I wouldn’t have expected that!
I wouldn’t either. For whatever reason I think of Scandinavia as being so focused on being egalitarian that they wouldn’t have national holidays specific to certain religions.
Nice if you live and work there… not so nice if you’re trying to travel there and discover that a random, rarely-celebrated-in-other-parts-of-the-world holiday is going to leave you stranded unable to find a hotel or get a bus ticket
Oops, yes, that’s never a good one. I haven’t been in trouble while traveling as a result of holidays yet, but I’m sure it’ll happen eventually!
If only Korea took the same approach to holidays! Sigh… Here if the holiday happens to fall on the weekend it’s like it never happened. No transferring it over. :/
Here it depends on the holiday as to whether it happens that way or not. It’s always so sad to lose out on a perfectly good day off because it falls on a weekend!