Tradition
In Swedish tradition many holidays have their main celebrations not on the Day but on the Eve of the holiday, meaning one day earlier. This is especially significant on Christmas Eve and Midsummer Eve, but also on New Year's Eve, however in this case not really unique. Christmas Eve, Midsummer Eve and New Year's Eve might very well be the single most important holidays during the entire year for Swedes. These days are however only de facto holidays. There are also de facto half-day holidays (with some variation depending on employer): Twelfth Night, Maundy Thursday, Walpurgis Night, the day before Ascension Day and the day before All Saints's Day.
The Swedish calendar also provides for special flag days. Flag days are in some cases official holidays or the birthdays and namedays for the Royal family and informal holidays like Gustav Adolfsdagen (Gustavus Adolphus Day, November 6) or the Nobeldagen (Nobel Day, December 10). There is no formal connection between flag days and holiday. Many flag days are ordinary workdays.
The official National holiday of Sweden is celebrated on June 6, a status which it was finally granted in 2005. The Name days in Sweden calendar is also denoted. It has a long history, originally a calendar of saints, some names have stuck throughout centuries while others have been modernized.
Read more about this topic: Public Holidays In Sweden
Famous quotes containing the word tradition:
“Science is neither a single tradition, nor the best tradition there is, except for people who have become accustomed to its presence, its benefits and its disadvantages. In a democracy it should be separated from the state just as churches are now separated from the state.”
—Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994)
“One might imagine that a movement which is so preoccupied with the fulfillment of human potential would have a measure of respect for those who nourish its source. But politics make strange bedfellows, and liberated women have elected to become part of a long tradition of hostility to mothers.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created. The average conservative is a slave to the most incidental and trivial part of his forefathers’ glory—to the archaic formula which happened to express their genius or the eighteenth-century contrivance by which for a time it was served.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)