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

[philomytha]

I expect on Komarr there are Issues about celebrating pre-Barrayaran-invasion national holidays vs celebrating Barrayaran holidays. Especially during the worst bits of the various uprisings there, I'd expect a lot of repression of any holiday that suggests that Komarr is an independent polity and a lot of 'encouragement' to celebrate the Emperor's Birthday really, really enthusiastically, and the whole thing being a benchmark for where individual Komarrans stand on the collaborator/resistance question.

On Sergyar they no doubt celebrate Prince Serg enthusiastically, which has to be fun for Aral and Cordelia...

I get the feeling Escobar is at least partly Catholic and celebrates the Catholic feast cycle (and how do you calculate the date for Easter on Escobar?) and yeah, certainly the day they drove the Barrayarans out.

[filkferengi]

Well, Aral & Cordelia could quite sincerely celebrate *surviving* Prince Serg. ;/