Public holidays in Bujold

[filkferengi]

It's Veteran's Day here, which brings to mind the question: what public holidays would they have on different worlds Lois has written?

On Barrayar, with its default assumption of military service, would every day be Veteran's Day, or would there be some general public holidays, with appropriate booming accompaniment?

On Sergyar, they couldn't do Count's birthday [too close to Emperor's birthday], but might do some Founder's Day type of celebration.

One is tempted to think of Beta Colony having some sort of Scientist's Day, but once again you run into the default assumption of everyone being a scientist [or at least scientific & rational].

I could easily see Komarrans having individual dome founding celebrations, planetwide Founder celebrations, and teeth-gritting-reluctant Barrayaran celebrations. The language used by dome maintenance departments after obligatory fireworks would make a Barrayaran blush.

Escobar would definitely rock Veteran's Day, though, and remember with pride the day they stood up to--and fought off!--those Barrayaran bullies.

Thoughts? Discussion? Fireworks? Bueller?


P. S. Happy Veteran's Day! To all who have, do, or will serve, thanks for your service!

Comments

[melannen]

Okay, now I'm kind of in love with the idea that somebody on Sergyar decided to try to establish the official founding celebration as the anniversary of Aral & Cordelia's first meeting, mostly just in order to embarrass them. :P

For some reason, I suspect the big "remembrance" holiday on Barrayar is not so much the victory over Cetaganda, but the anniversary of the start of the original invasion - the way the US remembers Pearl Harbor Day more than either of the WWII victory days. There's a certain amount of broken isolationist arrogance the two circumstances have in common, and the official start of the invasion would have been fiercely remembered through the whole war.

Komarr must have a day that is simultaneous a commemoration of the Barrayaran conquest and Solstice Massacre day, and it's probably incredibly politically fraught - it might oscillate between being banned and being mandatory.

I bet Beta Colony has a lot of historical birthdays celebrating democratic, military and scientific heroes (like the US's President's Day and MLK Day), and probably also a lot of state-declared holidays that aren't really celebrated - maybe things like Arbor Day that honor the terraforming and the dome ecologies?

[filkferengi]

Remember, Cordelia's ship was the _Rene Magritte_, after the artist. Maybe Beta Colony has holidays related to art or music.

Oh, dear; now I'm hearing carefully rational Betan bluegrass. Eep!

[biichan]

Okay, now I'm kind of in love with the idea that somebody on Sergyar decided to try to establish the official founding celebration as the anniversary of Aral & Cordelia's first meeting, mostly just in order to embarrass them. :P

Totally. It's beautiful.

Though I think after they got over their embarrassment/laughter, Cordelia decreed that it had to be celebrated with blue cheese and oatmeal ;)