The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) set the date of Easter as the Sunday following the 14th day of the paschal full moon, which is the full moon whose 14th day falls on or after the vernal (spring) equinox.
& it came to pass that our Houston consulting office was told (by a payroll auditor from the State of Texas) that we needed one more holiday to be in compliance with state law. The news was broken to all of us at the weekly staff meeting & I immediately moved for Ramadan. Not that I ever expected this would fly, but only the boss/owner laughed. The others actually said "but none of us are Muslim".
There was a list of choices, among them Good Friday, which also happened to be the next holiday on the calendar. I voted for Good Friday. The owner voted for Good Friday. The remainder of the staff stood with their mouths hanging open; the two of us did not have a great track record when it came to supporting group absences for religious holidays & it caught everyone off guard.
& then we explained. In this particular year, Good Friday coincided with Passover & my in-laws would be in town (for those who are curious Passover is NOT one of the holidays that State of Texas will consider an official or optional holiday but LBJ's birthday is). This accounted for my unusual sympathy.
But the best was saved for last. The boss wanted Good Friday because his golf course was not open on Mondays, so another Monday holiday was useless to him. There was pandemonium while the ethicacy of selecting a religious holiday for wholly unreligious reasons (unless you consider golf a religion, which F**** kind of does) was debated. & then we moved for a vote.
In the end, Good Friday became an official holiday in our office. & F**** got his golf game in. & I privately swapped Good Friday for whatever day Passover really was (someone has to deal with the calls from clients who do not observe Good Friday) & all was right with the world.
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