To HATE Easter Sunday!

[ElseaStars]

Sorry I know I'm probably being unreasonable but why is EVERYWHERE closed?! I really hate Easter. (To me it's a a day for kids and religious people)

"terrible harm of having to book annual leave for their important festivals and celebrations?"

You do realise most shops don't LET you book annual leave over bank holidays, right? We're not allowed leave the week of Easter (upto BH Monday) or in December. The only way we get time off is if we're lucky enough not to be rota'd on, OR if someone is kind enough to shift swap.

I like Easter Sunday. Lovely food, peace and quiet and then out for a drink in the evening. Mass optional.

Who cares if everywhere is closed? There's more to life than shops being open 24/7 so you can waste time giving businesses your money when you could be relaxing and enjoying your leisure time. Its a bank holiday after Easter its easy enough to do the shops then so the withdrawal symptoms are minimised

Big shops were closed, but other stuff like cinemas, restaurants, meuseams, national trust properties etc were generally open.

I don't see big shops being shut for a day as such an awful thing, minor inconvenience but not a disaster for the day!

Corus I find your statement "And to compare Good Friday, a day of pretend mourning for someone you do not believe is truly dead, to actual mourning for actual people, is crass." incredibly rude. You are mocking someone's religious beliefs which I think is totally out of order.

Corus is entitled to her beliefs on the matter too, you know. TBH even when I was a Christian I found it a bit odd, singing solemn hymns on the Friday when we all knew we'd be singing joyful ones two days later.

Life is a mixture of sorrow and joy though I think, of mourning and yet hope. I can see the wisdom in the Easter festival and how it's different days and seasons might be helpful to people, even without taking it all as literally as the churches tend to do these days.

The 'balance of harm' argument is just silly as there are loads of people who would be quite happy to work on Easter Sunday (and plenty of people do work on Easter Sunday, in non-essential roles at that). So-called 'protection' for the people who do deeply care about Easter for religious reasons who happen to work in shops big enough to be covered by the current laws (and not for anyone else, whether they care or not) is just nonsensical.

It's quite simple for shops to instigate a policy where Christians who care about Easter Sunday are able to book annual leave for it (as they'd presumably do for Good Friday and Easter Monday too, when the shops are open).

As you say you are entitled to your opinion - mine is that by calling something "pretend mourning" is mocking what someone believes in, possibly not what you intended but how I took it. If that's my mistake apologies.

I think that we should get rid of the Easter break and have the same four day weekend in August when the weather is better.
Also we should move one of the May Bank Holidays, having two in the same month is silly.

Anyway, today I was given a sheet of data per child in my class for the parents to check and return. One of of the details is religion. Of the 25 children in my class 1 is muslim and 11 are christian. The rest have put 'no religion'. Of the 11 Christian children, 4 come from families that are first generation immigrants to the UK.
Not very scientific I know, but I think that it won't be long until this is no longer a Christian country.

corus, don't worry, I was just trying to describe a feeling, which is never easy. It isn't just a question of giving people the day off, but of general respect, as I said above somewhere. And I doubt the request for days off could be accommodated by most businesses/services that wish to operate over Easter.
It is rather like the two minute silence in November. For example, in a town centre, the majority may observe it, but there are always a few insensitive folk who insist that it is business as usual and go striding through those who are observing it. I have never lost anyone directly to a war etc., and I find that attitude offensive, whatever one's political beliefs, but it is probably more 'I need to get to the Post Office' than a political stance - more of the 'me me me'. I find it a positive time for reflection about loss and. Sacrifice made so that I can live my life as I do. If I had actually lost someone too, I would be even more . Not sure I am explaining myself well...
Didn't know that my analogy above was also cited by Ann W. We must be very similar. Not sure I can face watching the clip though.

It's just another day. Thankfully, in Scotland, they are done with this nonsense and shops are open.

Hi expat, what about the Western Isles? Thought children's parks closed and there was no lawn mowing on a Sunday etc., let alone at Easter. Just interested to know if it has changed.

Eh? My mats were in Mull at a pub for Easter. No idea about other islands, but our part was open for punters.

Lewis/Harris are the strict places, I believe.

Yes, but those are the Upper Hebrides.

Even they run a d keep stuff open now because they need the punters, especially this time of year.

God seems to be pretty bad at magicking up money when people need it to eat.