Mid Winter

I was having a really nice week. Like, really nice. In fact, I even thought seriously about writing a really happy and positive blog this week – ‘Everything I love about being on holiday with my dog and my dad.’ A number of people (i.e. more than one) have told me that I am perhaps a little too cynical sometimes. I thought that the holidays would be a happy time to work on showing people that I’m not as cynical as they might think… But, this happy and positive blog, obviously wasn’t a goer… Firstly, I feel like happy and positive blogs are deep. And that’s a window to my soul. And I’ve already talked about my music taste on this blog, and that is window to my soul enough for one year, thank you very much. So, without further ado, I had a horrible realisation this week.

As many of you will be well aware, it is mid-summer in the Northern Hemisphere. I am well aware of this fact because National Geographic posted an article titled, ‘First Day of Summer: 4 Things to Know About the Summer Solstice.’ I also know it’s Mid-Summer there because it is mid winter here. My horrible realisation was that my whole life has been dictated by Northern Hemispherers (because my life revolves around holidays).

The World

(And no, there are no polar bears in Antarctica)

I happened upon this thought while I was freezing my arse off at the local mid-winter festival, Matariki. Matariki is cool (that’s my enthusiasm coming through there, in case you didn’t notice – seriously, ‘cool’ is about as good as it gets) because it is a festival about the rising of a constellation in the sky. And stars are about my favourite thing. 

Artistic representation of Matariki

But enough of the personal stuff… I realised that us Southern Hemispherers have no public holidays to get us through the winter season. Like none. Zilch. Zero. The Northern Hemispherers have organised the calendar year in such a way that there are no  universal holidays in their summer season, just their own summer holiday. But here, down under, we suffer. We have to go the long dark nights with nothing to look forward to; no light at the end of the tunnel, no holiday to get us through. We are really tough. Especially because we don’t have central heating and our houses aren’t insulated. Luckily though, I live at home so I can turn on two heaters and sit in front of the fire. That’s just what it takes to keep warm around here. Oh that, and an extra layer of fat… Which I propose as the leading cause of New Zealand’s obesity epidemic. 

So then I got thinking about our public holidays, in general, after crying myself to sleep about the long dark of Moria (Lord of the Rings reference) or winter, or whatever you want to call it. First things first, my Christmas is in summer… Which makes no sense really. Nobody is meant to have Christmas in summer. It’s a fact. It’s unnatural.  I mean it’s all well and good having Christmas at the beach, but you’d only be kidding yourself if you thought that I (and the rest of the Southern Hemisphere population) had not always dreamed of a white Christmas. Actually, people here talk about going in search of  a white Christmas, like it's the Holy Grail or some shit like that. There is something about the comfort and warmth of sitting inside at Christmas that we Southern Hemispherers really miss. And, let’s be honest, it is phenomenally difficult to take a Santa on the beach seriously. And anybody in a Santa suit here just gets hot, sweaty and grumpy. We all know that. 

Everybody's visualisation of Santa

New Zealand Santa

Looks a little intoxicated?

New Year’s is also in the winter holiday zone for those in the North. That’s right… the Northerners planned not one but two large public holidays for their winter season, while we Southerners get zero. Seriously, who is running this show? But, in terms of timing, I do think that New Year’s is better as a summer public holiday than a winter holiday. This is based on the simple fact that New Year’s is a party holiday. And we like to be warm when we party. Not that you actually notice that much, if you are doing the partying right… but that’s a detail I am willing to forgo.   

And then there’s Easter – and Easter makes the least sense of all. Easter is all about resurrection and new life, and happens in the spring in the Northern Hemisphere, which is all very fitting. Everything is coming to life after winter. Such a beautiful metaphor, with chicks (the bird not the other kind…) and foals and bunnies and kittens and puppies and eggs. It’s ridiculous, because the ‘reason for the season’ is exactly the same in the Southern Hemisphere, like the whole nine yards with the kittens and the bunnies and the eggs… Except it falls in autumn (see what I did there?), the season of death. Ok, maybe a little extreme, but you get what I am saying… We have blindly followed the other 90% of the world’s population that live on the other side of the equator. As a result, we below the equator, have ended up with some horribly juxtaposing public holidays.

Easter: Not natural in autumn

The cat agrees.

She's just having an all around bad time having Easter at an unnatural time of year

Here’s what I propose… Instead of having a small dotted line on the globe that is the equator, we build a wall. So this would need to be shown with a full black permanent marker line right around the fat part of the globe on all maps (maps that didn’t have this would be retracted, corrected and then returned to their owners). And then, the Northern Hemisphere could keep it’s traditions and it’s holidays. And we Southern Hemispherers could have our Christmas in June, just after the winter solstice, to give us something to look forward to and distract us from the fact that our days are getting colder and shorter. And Easter could be in September, right around the time of my birthday, so that I could have time off to get in the last of the skiing for the season. And New Year’s could stay right where it is on January 1^st, in the hope that one day, it won’t rain on that day, as it has done for the past 2 years at least. And it a great day it shall be.

New Year's Rain: Super fun for a solid 5 minutes

New Year's Rain: Then this happens

Somebody from the Northern Hemisphere created this map

Behold, the new calendar that we adhere to in the Southern Hemisphere. Oh, but in this new calendar, the end of the world was December 21, 2012. Because that’s fun.

Winter might be coming, but it's not all bad. 

But perhaps I know nothing.