Anyone else annoyed by how Easter falls this year?

[Pyjamapyjamapyjama]

Easter is a big deal in my culture (I'm not British) and we always travel to my parents to celebrate. I cannot drive for a medical reason and usually take my kids there by train (it's a good 3 hours away), going on the Thursday before and returning the Tuesday after. However this year the schools go back on the Tuesday directly after Easter Monday which is incredibly irritating as no trains are running over Easter weekend and I have 0 desire to drag two kids and a baby on replacement bus services. I can't host myself as my home isn't large enough.

So annoying!!

It is the way your LA has arranged the holidays. I am off the week after Easter. Go back on April 28th.

Can you talk to the school and keep your children out of school on the Tuesday OP? Is that possible where you are?

Taking the day off wouldn’t be a problem where I am (Ireland) but not necessary because the Easter holidays are flexible and set each year so Easter Sunday is in the middle of the two weeks off. I think it makes sense like that, though it does mean school terms can be longer or shorter as a result.

Look into costs of a private car transfer.(long haul taxi)
Might not be so expensive
Maybe your relatives can contribute

Easter is a movable feast, it's not 'fixed' on a particular day (unlike Christmas, in Western Christianity it is always the 25th Dec), although the date it will be is known for the next thousand years, I understand (someone worked it out; it's a moon festival). Where I live - the UK - Easter is always in the middle of the Easter holiday, whenever Easter is.
Perhaps ask if DC can miss the Tuesday?

Actually as a Christian I would rather like the public holiday to be detached from the Christian holy days. We could have a winter festival 21/ 22 December, (winter solstice good as any other hook) , Spring festival on the Equinox….that would detach a religious festival from the orgy of irrelevant consumption which is now overwhelming.

it might also put a stop to the endless, repetitive sniping from the irreligious claiming that it’s all just ‘pagan’ ( whatever that means, ‘pagan’ is a term invented by late Roman aristocratic commentators for non Christians, it’s roughly translatable as ‘yokel’) - although that is probably a vain hope.

It is annoying that it's at the end of the holidays for us too. DHs family live abroad (28 hour drive) and both kids have birthdays that week. They'd love to see the family but it isn't really going to be viable, we'd have to leave to come home too early and we'd miss the best bits.

@Pyjamapyjamapyjama surely if it’s a big deal you know the date changes due to religious reasons?

If it’s difficult, maybe your partner can drive you.

Here to say not just you!! Sorry you haven’t had much sympathy… we also always travel for Easter although by a short plane ride to family abroad where Easter is a very big deal too 😌 and this years dates are not making this easy…

Haha. It's my son's birthday too and I've been thinking about when to do his party. Good to know it's the only time I'll ever have to consider it.

A 3hr train ride - you could get the 8am train on the Tuesday morning and have them in school before lunch.

Nope not here either - Easter weekend is in the middle of the school holidays. I love a late Easter - usually means a nice hot bank holiday weekend

This. I don't think they did it to deliberately annoy you.

My kids are in different schools (one primary and one secondary ) and their Easter holidays don't even coincide this year. Try telling your boss you need 3 weeks off at Easter and another 6 for the summer hols..yeah not going to happen

Perhaps read the thread? It is a fixed calculation - so it is fixed. It will happen when the Christian church says it will. And that will depend on the church in question. Anyway, I don't know why everyone is getting so worked up - I guarantee that 95% at least of the people on this thread aren't Christian and don't observe it anyway. Christians will continue to celebrate Easter. The rest of you can take holiday dates up with the schools.

Ours don't go back until the Tuesday, what local authority are you?

Easter Day falls on the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

It's rather beautifully archaic, literally Byzantine.

Don't be arsey.It's a public holiday. Christian or not. It's very hard to ignore eggs, rabbits and daffodils in every aisle, shops and businesses closing " for Easter" and all the family stuff that comes with this sort of holiday.

It is annoying for many, though some are enjoying that they'll get an extra day when that happens. I'd recommend talking to the school about it - religious and cultural exemptions are often available - and if the school follows the local council's dates, you may want to look into your local council's consultations on school dates - many put up a couple options every few years for the next few years as part of determining dates & take feedback before publishing final dates.

There have been proposals in different denominations to fix the date, particularly after full separation from the Jewish calendar (though still required to fall after Passover), some which have gone through for a group, though none I'm aware of that survive today. The last big push for it some decades back had some interesting ideas, but none had strong enough agreement to break centuries of tradition. It's a hard sell to those likely to be involved enough in the larger denominations who have the power to make such changes - they tend to be traditionalists.

Firstly, it definitely is based more on religion, as it’s a Christian festival.
Secondly, I didn’t generalise….on the OP’s original post she/he made the comment about not being British and how Easter was importantly to their culture, implying it wasn’t in British culture…..so I just confirmed it was in my culture and I am British.

It's not Easter's fault

So we have all had in effect 273 years warning of a late Easter this year.

I upset our HR team a few years ago when they moaned about financial year end and pointed out how many years ago the date each year was set.

Well of course you won't get more annual leave due to your personal circumstances.
It's very common for people that live on county boundaries to have children in schools in different counties and have different holidays. Also teachers having different holiday to their own children.

In fact the head mentioned in a newsletter when 1/2 terms were different that it would be challenging for teachers who had children. I think that this wasn't news for parents, but for the staff newsletter. I understand that many teachers have factored in the benefit of being off when their own kids are.
I get standard annual leave (which I'm not complaining about, it's how it is) so many, many school holidays are a challenge that I've just had to manage. It's not news.

Are you an orthodox Christian OP? I know that orthodox Easter falls at the same time this year and in DHs family’s culture, Easter is like a full on event all weekend so maybe you can apply to the school to have your DC go back a day later?

I know people are wondering why the OP is so put out, but in the Orthodox Church Easter is actually more significant than Christmas so I can sort of understand.

It's not a big deal to us because we are religious (culturally it is and we were religious growing up but we aren't now particularly - it's like Christmas is important culturally here but not necessarily just to those who are religious).

It's important because I lost a sibling around Easter time as children and every year the family meets to celebrate them. It's important to us. Got nothing to do with chocolate but symbolically it's just something we always do at Easter.

And I can't host because my house is tiny, and my partner can't drive us because I don't have one.

I will probably just have them miss the first day back tbh.

Yes we are but I'm no longer practising- but it's still a big deal culturally. And it's tenfold for us because of the reasons I explained about. This is exactly it - it's not about chocolate eggs for us!