European Holidays

Steyn reflecting on the differences between Europe and the US (a retread from '05).

In America, the Christmas holiday is what it says: a holiday to observe Christmas. If it happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday, tough. See you at work Monday morning. But across the Atlantic, if Christmas and New Year fall on the weekend, the ensuing weeks are eaten up by so many holidays they can’t even come up with names for them. I see from the well-named “Beautiful Ireland” calendar this newspaper sent me in lieu of a handsome bonus for calling the US elections correctly that January 3rd 2005 is a holiday in Ireland and Britain – the Morning After The Morning After Hogmanay – and the lucky Scots get January 4th off too – the First Hogtuesday After Hogmonday? Eventually, the entire Scottish economy will achieve the happy state of their enchanted village of Brigadoon and show up for one day every hundred years.

But Paris in August, like London “over Christmas”, is in itself a symbol of flight – flight from work. Europeans can match Americans in productivity per hour; it’s getting them to put in the hours that’s the problem. In 1999, the average “working” German worked 1,536 hours a year, the average American 1,976. In the US, 49% of the population is in employment, in France 39%. From my strictly anecdotal observation of German acquaintances, the ideal career track seems to be to finish school around 34 and take early retirement at 42. By 2050, the pimply young lad in lederhosen serving you at the charming beer garden will be singlehandedly supporting entire old folks’ homes. If tax rates were to be hiked commensurate to the decline in tax base and increase in welfare obligations, there would be no incentive at all to enter the (official) job market. Better to stay at school till 38 and retire at 39.

It would require enormous political will to shift the people of Europe. After you’ve turned citizens into junkies, with government as the pusher, it’s very hard to turn them back again, and even harder to get them to quit (if you’ll forgive the expression) cold turkey. It’s all but impossible in the present Continental political culture. Europe has a psychological investment in longer holidays: the fact that they spell national suicide is less important than that they distinguish Europe from the less enlightened Americans.

Many aspects of European life are, indeed, very pleasant: jobs for life, three-week Yuletides, etc. But they’re what the environmental crowd would call “unsustainable development”. Despite the best efforts of lethargic Scotsmen, it can’t be Christmas all year round.