Thellid Special Days

Special days are for enjoyment, not work!

Freedays

It is up to each country and culture to allocate freedays and festivals as they see fit, however, since we are all still connected to the movement of the Sun, one may expect each of the 4 main Sun days to be associated with a major festival and be allocated a freeday wherever you are.

The Thellid calendar had this in mind from its conception, and I have contrived that all four Sun days always occur immediately following a Vaira, so that all major freedays are long weekends. :-)

The Northern Winter Solstice is a massive festival that involves Old Year's Day, New Year's Day and Leap Day. It looks forward to the coming Spring, farewells the old year and welcomes the new. This much commemoration calls for a lot of celebration and in the Thellid Calendar it ALWAYS means a long weekend of at least 4 days. This is the festival that is currently known as "Christmas/New Year's". The conjugate festival is just as big in the southern hemisphere, where the Summer Solstice provides even greater excuse to party!

Summer Solstice, (in the northern hemisphere), Day is the Pasku that is within a day of the true solstice. Normally it will be the day of the solstice. This will typically be a long warm day where people can enjoy the outdoors and the plentiful fruit available. A carefree time to spend with family and friends. It's conjugate in the southern hemisphere may be cold, (depending on the location), but that just provides an excuse for fires, hot food and indoor entertainment.

The Spring and Autumn equinoxes are marked for the Pasku that is within a day of the true equinox. Normally they will actually BE the day of the equinox. Autumn festivals are typically around the theme of bringing the last of the Harvest Home, slaughtering the excess livestock and preserving the meat, and security for the coming winter. Spring festivals celebrate the return of warmth, fertility and the sowing of the crop.

Such are the rhythms of the temperate year, but tropical and sub-tropical regions have other rhythms. Notwithstanding this, there is always a pretext for celebrating the 4 Sun days. Most importantly, irrespective of climatic differences, we all need to celebrate the end of the old year and the birth of the new. So long as we all follow the Thellid Calendar the entire planet can do this at the same time.

Birthdays

In the Thellid calendar people's birthdays take place on the same day of the week every year. If someone was born on a Teijal, then EVERY year their birthday will be on a Teijal. To find what your birthday is in the Thellid Calendar refer to the algorithm on the previous page.

People born on the 29th of February, (ie a Gregorian Leap Day), find they now have an ordinary birthday: ie 69 or 70 days from the solstice = 13th or 14th of Duvadda. The people that now have the problem, (and this is the one exception to the above rule), are those that are born on the Thellid Leap Day. This problem is dealt with by saying that their birthday is the 365th day of the year so that it is on Old Year's Day 3 years out of 4 and Leap Day the other one. People born on Old Year's Day in a normal year (ie day 365) celebrate their birthday on Old Year's Day every year whether it is day 365 or day 366.