Pages tagged with: public holidays

Christmas in New Zealand is less about snow and sleigh bells and more about sun, sand and barbecues in the backyard. During December we delve into the Kiwi Christmas experience – from Abel Tasman’s first New Zealand Christmas in 1642 to the declining reign of the Queen’s message in our living rooms.

First observed in 1916, Anzac Day - 25 April - commemorates those killed in war as well as honouring returned servicemen and women. The ceremonies that are held at war memorials across the country, or in places overseas where New Zealanders gather, are rich in tradition and ritual.

Every year on 6 February New Zealand marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Since the 1970s the style and mood of the commemorations on Waitangi Day have been influenced by the increasingly heated debate surrounding the status of the Treaty in modern-day New Zealand.

Empire Day (24 May), was celebrated widely in New Zealand from 1903 and was a major event in the Vice-regal calendar.

Hear Today in New Zealand history, April 25: the spirit of ANZAC, which was recorded in 1950.

The Anzac Day ceremony of 25 April is a form of military funeral and follows a particular pattern. The day's ceremonies have two major parts: one at dawn and another, more public event, later in the morning.

This reports the first Labour Day parade in Wellington, 28 October 1890.

Why did we celebrate Empire Day?

Anzac Day was made a half-day holiday in 1916, and the pattern of the day's events that occur now began at that time.

24 May, Queen Victoria's birthday, was Empire Day. Most people welcomed this link to 'Queen Victoria the Good' in the days when the celebration of the sovereign's birthday changed with each new monarch.

The Waitangi Day Act 1960 declared 6 February to be Waitangi Day – a national day of thanksgiving in commemoration of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. 

The first Empire Day was commemorated in 1903

The parades, building openings, flag salutes and earnest speeches of 1903 set the pattern for later Empire Days.

Waitangi Day, a public holiday from 1974, briefly became New Zealand Day in the 1970s. Increasingly, it became a focus for Maori protest activities.

Labour Day float, 1916

Anzac Day came to have a wider focus and the commemorations became more popular in the years after the Second World War.

The 1980s brought changes in the way Waitangi Day was marked officially, as well as growing Maori protest.

Children were key targets for Empire Day.

Each generation of New Zealanders redefines Anzac Day to suit the mood of the times, but the last 40 years have been a time of much redefinition.

The first Dominion Day, 1907, was a holiday for public servants as all government offices closed to mark the occasion.

Empire Day segued into Commonwealth Day in 1958 when 100 people gathered around Queen Victoria's statue in Albert Park to hear Governor-General Lord Cobham say that 'the British Empire had now given way to the noble concept of a Commonwealth of free peoples'

Dominion Day, 26 September, never really took hold in New Zealand. Wellington was one of the few places that kept up ceremonies after 1907.

Parades, flag raising ceremonies and unveilings and openings were common on Empire Day. The Victoria Ward of the Wanganui public hospital opened on Empire Day 1903

For years schools lined up children for patriotic addresses before giving them the rest of Empire day off as a holiday

It's hard for most of us today to imagine Christmas Day not being a holiday, but a day off on 25 December hasn't always been a legal entitlement.

Come late December and thousands of Kiwis get ready for their annual holiday. They look forward to lazy days at the beach or the bach (or crib), games of backyard cricket, food on the barbie and the holiday uniform of shorts, jandals and T-shirts.

See a video and related text about a 2006 survey of New Zealanders' attitude to Christmas.

Stylised ‘bathing belles’ and other images of women figured prominently in inter-war railway advertising.

Anzac Day ceremony at the temporary Cenotaph, outside Parliament House, 1927