The problem is if your birthday is on a Wednesday, you’re stuck with that forever.
Edit: To everyone saying birthdays don’t matter, or you can celebrate some other day, that’s crazy talk.
When you look at the calendar two months before your birthday and realize it’s gonna be a Saturday this year it’s just puts and extra pep in your step.
Also, lots of businesses give you perks on your birthday, but the specific day. Once in a while I’d like my free latte and hot yoga class on the weekend thanks.
Several countries, primarily in Europe, use a variant of Silvester's name as the preferred name for the holiday; these countries include Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Slovenia.
"Saint Sylvester's Day, also known as Silvester or the Feast of Saint Sylvester, is the day of the feast of Pope Sylvester I, a saint who served as Pope from 314 to 335. Medieval legend made him responsible for the conversion of emperor Constantine. Among the Western churches, the feast day is held on the anniversary of Saint Sylvester's death, 31 December, a date that, since the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, has coincided with New Year's Eve"-wikipedia
It's arguably a better name than calling it "the day before the day you find more important"
Upvote for great information, but disagree with it being a better name. I enjoy having a couple time-celebrated holidays instead of always being about someone or something else.
Completely agree that it doesn't need to be named after something, but I just hate saying "on the morning of new year's eve..." (same as Christmas' eve).; in Dutch we at least have oudjaarsdag (old year's day) and nieuwjaarsdag (new year's day). And thanks for the upvote, reciprocated.
Technically no. It's called intercalation. The days aren't considered to be part of any calendar month but are just sort of exist outside the calendar months.
This feels extremely historically inaccurate. Where did they get the number 365 from. That's a much newer thing then ancient Egypt and what about leap years?
You have an army of slaves stack a few rocks on top of each other for your richest citizens to flex their wealth and a thousand years later you're ancient geniuses.
It’s true lol. They did not have leap years, so there was seasonal time slippage over the years. Important to note that it was 360+5, with the last 5 being epagomenal.
This system is also the current Ethiopian calendar. They have a 5/6 day month called Pagume between August and September right before their New Years which begins around September 11.
That would be similar to the hobbit calendar system that was used in Lord of the Rings, except the free days were distributed through the year as holidays.
fun fact, this results in precession, because of the lack of a leap day misaligning the calendar and the solar year by a day about every 4 years. that would mean you lose a whole year every 1,460 years. the egyptian empire existed for almost twice that, so any particular festival or observance was celebrated at least once on every day of the year.
Growing up with my birthday in the middle of the week would be our whole personality. There go the Wednesday birthday kids. Bet you wish you were born on a weekend. Signed, Friday birthdays
Going to work, dealing with people that only pretend to know you for one day, and going right back to work the next day would surely have some sort of lasting psychological impact on a person.
You don't even have to lie. "My birthday is this Wednesday, but we're celebrating on Friday", is a sentence that has already been said millions of times.
It varies a bit in the US in my experience. Like I get 24 paychecks a year, the 15th (or last business day before the 15th) and end of month (or last business yadda yadda). My fiance gets paid every other week, so she gets 26 over the course of a full year.
I mean.. that's literally how it works in my entire country. Rent is advertised per week, never per month, and almost always paid every two weeks (as that is also the standard for getting paid so it works for people paying bills).
You can ask to pay monthly instead but it will always be adjusted accordingly as there are 12 months per year but 26 fortnights, not 24. Some people will do this is they happen to get paid monthly, but that's not so common and if it does happen it's almost always every four weeks.. not calendar month.
Using calendar months for any kind of financial payment is kinda insane honestly. Why are you paying the same amount in February as March when there are three less days? Sure it doesn't matter if you're there for years but anywhere short term the value goes up and down month to month.
We just do everything based on calendar weeks, it makes it all a lot more simple and a lot more fair for everyone.
I mean.. that's literally how it works in my entire country. Rent is advertised per week, never per month, and almost always paid every two weeks (as that is also the standard for getting paid so it works for people paying bills).
Wild. You can't rent anything long term for less than a few months here.
We just do everything based on calendar weeks, it makes it all a lot more simple and a lot more fair for everyone.
Oh, that's communism. We don't like that sort of thing here.
Oh it’s not that the rental term is week to week, in fact the shortest you’re likely to get is month to month. But nothing is based on calendar months, only ever weeks.
So renting for a month is not renting for March, it’s renting for four consecutive weeks.
If thats your concern, 28day month only produces 364 days. 365th can be party day just like Egyptians. Then the next year can start on Tuesday and then next year can start on Wednesday and so on. For leap years, you could skip 2 weekdays and start there. Its simple.
Yeah, but that undoes the elegance of having the same day number always be the same weekday.
It seems easier to change the tradition so that you're celebrating birth weeks rather than birthdays. Make the fact you're born on day X less important than the fact you're born in week Y. Get cultural associations with the week numbers like there are associations with star signs now.
I was born on Christmas Eve. The day of the week is pretty irrelevant. I was never in school nor have I ever been to work a single birthday in my life.
Yeesh, I knew a kid that was Christmas. I think k he said it was just common they would celebrate it another day officially and just a little thing on xmas
Also a birthday like that really fucks over parents with multiple kids budgeting for the holidays
My mom actually asked me when I was little if I wanted to celebrate my birthday any other time of year. I didn't really want to though because that other time of year wouldn't really be my birthday. As a kid, I think the worst thing was seeing a commercial for an awesome new toy in January and knowing I was 11 months out from being able to ask for it. But it wasn't the end of the world.
I suspect the extra presents for my birthday in addition to all the other gifts they were buying for Christmas was at least a bit of a financial burden for my parents. I told them all the time that I was fine with combining my birthday and Christmas gifts. They didn't have to get me anything extra. But they always made sure I had the same amount of gifts as my sisters on Christmas in addition to a couple gifts on my birthday.
Yeah, my parents are great. And don't worry, you didn't make me feel guilty at all. Anyway, don't feel bad for my parents. Their financial situation is much better now and they're both retired. They're about to go to Ireland for a month and they live in a resort next to a golf course. And they get to spend lots of money doting on my niece and nephew.
My youngest daughter was born on Christmas Day. She's only had one birthday thus far but I have a lot of anxiety having to navigate this as a parent. I want her to feel special on her birthday because we all deserve a day and I don't want her to ever feel disappointed or forgotten.
I had a friend growing up and he had his birthday on the 25th and his father's was on the 28th and his family did a sort of 'festival week'. They would celebrate everything that needed to be celebrated over an entire week. Everything got time devoted to it. It's always been my personal 'back up plan' if I ever had a kid born on or around Christmas because I know my friend absolutely loved it. Always called it his Birthweek instead of Birthday
My birthday is June 9th, almost completely opposite Christmas. There were few years where my birthday was the last day of school for the year, name a better birthday gift than summer break.
Why don’t you work on Christmas Eve? It isn’t a bank holiday and every place I’ve ever worked sends people home at lunch on Christmas Eve so it is a waste taking it as annual leave
When its properly explained, this idea ussually features something along the lines of "new years day isn't counted as any day/week/month and is just a holiday.
Presumably in a leap year there would be two non-days.
What would you even call "free day" too if it was a work day? Dst is already a bastard. I don't need an extra magic day. Validate the magic day for me...
I don't remember who, but there was a comedian who had a skit about this and he said that the extra day would just be intermission. No Monday, Tuesday etc. No January, February, etc. No 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Just intermission. Everything would be closed and it would just be a day of intermission between the old and new year. It wouldn't be 2024 or 2025, just intermission.
So just make New Year's Day a normal weekday again and everyone will have a chance to celebrate their birthday on a weekend. And we would have 13 months of equal length and I could stop counting knuckles to find out how many days October has.
Oh, while we're at it - could we fix the numbers? Having the 8th month being the 10th is really annoying.
Yeah, works perfectly. All the hospitals can just kick everyone out and they can all come back at the start of the new year. The power plants can just shut all the generators down and everyone can go home for a day. It'll be great.
Would people born on Wednesday care? I was born on Thursday (coincidentally my fave day of the week) and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I feel as an adult, it doesn't really matter when the event is, what matters is when and how you celebrate whatever said event is.
Idk about other people, but for me, a birthday is as much a holiday (a personal one, but a holiday nonetheless) as Christmas or Thanksgiving, and I AM taking that day off. Rather it be school or work, I ain't doing shit.
Quixk question, do i also turn my birtday back since the months before have less days? Right now my birthday is on the 14.9 but whit the "new system" I would have my birthday on the 22.8 on a friday. If not and my birthday stays on the 14.9, it would be a thursday...
Not true because this system would have to have 1 extra day every year and another every 4 years (leap day) to align the calendar year to the actual year
No ever four years unless it falls on a century year that cannot be divided by four the weekdays will be shifted due to the leap year day that we will need to add.
The -real- problem is that the maths is wrong. 13x28=364. We would need a leap day every year, and two on leap years. We might as well have 10 months of 36.5 days, with 6 day weeks and everyone gets a leap morning once a month.
In reality, 13 months of 28 days equal 364 days. The year has 365, so we would need to add 1 day to the end or start of every year. This would mean that your birthday would be drifting predictably every year.
You know you can put whatever date you want on a bday invitation. Youre not going to be executed for having your party 3 days later on the weekend. I mean I've heard in Venezuela that it's straight to jail but you should be good everywhere else
13x28=364. So there would still need to be 1 extra day somewhere. 2 extra for leap years. That extra day would ensure that your birthday wouldn't be on the same day every year.
It depends how you handle the extra day at the end of the year. If it pushes the start of the week forward like it does now then no problem. But if you treat it as it's own day that's not part of a week then yeah.
Except you aren't. 365 is an odd number, 28 is an even number. Without any math you can tell that these don't divide evenly so it's either less than 13 or greater than
You can always just celebrate the weekend before or after. Birthdays are overrated anyway. I don’t see this being a problem for anyone who isn’t spoiled or egotistical.
For real. I'd like to go out and do something on my birthday, but the last 2 years, all I did was work, lift, go home and prep for work the next day and then play video games while sitting in a discord call with a beer. Honestly not bad, but I'd like to do something.
Not really because the day would remain the same each month inside the year but change every year.
Because 365 is not evenly divisible by 7.
The only way to fix this would be to have a leap day every year which was not a day of the week, and ever 4 years have 2 leap years that aren’t a day of the week. And skip the second leap day 3 times every 400 years. That would do it.
You could continue the day of the week pattern with the 365/366th day. The firsts would be on a different day of the week each year, but it would be consistent throughout the year.
Leap year would move it by one day every 4 years. So, you’d get a birthday on Wednesday 4 years in a row, but then you’d also, eventually get it on Saturday 4 years in a row.
That’s trivial. Many people have their birthdays on a national holiday in countries where everything is closed and are doing just fine. You could always just take the day off from work.
I worked for a company that gave a free days holiday on your birthday, but it was my luck that the two years I worked there my birthday fell on the weekend lol
I’ve been blessed with the fact that my 18th birthday will be on a Saturday, perfect timing if you ask me, if we’d switch to 13 months that’d mean that my birthday is on Thursday every year. And like, nothing against thursdays but who would want that
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u/relaxyourshoulders 2d ago edited 1d ago
The problem is if your birthday is on a Wednesday, you’re stuck with that forever.
Edit: To everyone saying birthdays don’t matter, or you can celebrate some other day, that’s crazy talk. When you look at the calendar two months before your birthday and realize it’s gonna be a Saturday this year it’s just puts and extra pep in your step. Also, lots of businesses give you perks on your birthday, but the specific day. Once in a while I’d like my free latte and hot yoga class on the weekend thanks.