Hi there
Last weekend, here in New Zealand, was King's Birthday Weekend. We got a holiday to officially celebrate the monarch's birthday (2 June). Of course, it's not his real birthday, just as it wasn't the Queen's real birthday. I must admit that after Queen's Birthday Weekend was a holiday for something like 70 years, it was difficult for most New Zealand citizens to talk about King's Birthday Weekend -
"Oi, Maisie, what are you doin' this Queen's Birthday Weekend?"
"Oh for goodness sake, Mum,, it's King's Birthday Weekend. "King's, King's, King's...."
All of those sales tv adverts had to be changed for the first King's Birthday weekend. In the past, stores would regurgitate tired commercials of corgis and queenly stick figures to sell their wares. But then those ads were dumped without ceremony, and kingly animation ads appeared..
There's always rumblings about New Zealand sacking the monarchy and going republic. Obviously the holiday will disappear...
But hang on,... maybe the powers-that-be are thinking ahead ...
A few years' back, New Zealand brought in Matariki Weekend. Matariki is a cluster of stars that signifiy a start of the Maori New Year. It's always in June , on a Friday, and this year the holiday is on Friday 20th. Matariki is probably more relevant to kiwis than King's Birthday.
But could Matariki be read as a substitute for a future deletion of King's Birthday Weekend, so as not to anger the NZ public who don't give a fig whose day it is as long as they get a holiday in June?
And while we're at it, what other public holidays could be dumped as their true meaning disappears? Christmas might evolve into some day in December called 'Santa Claus Day'?. And Easter? - Ooooh, how about 'Bunny Day'?*
*Sarcastic much?
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