Which holiday is mor

Which holiday is more profitable - Easter or Xmas? Gift Giving inspires marketing for a good 2 months prior yet with 4 days off in a row; an Easter vacation would certainly be a big seller. Everything in life is mercantile and these two holidays certainly can be quite the marketing wet dream for business depending on the appreciation of your creative entrepreneurship. Which holiday costs the most? For business, in Australia, April is a month of short weeks yet it is like an administrative graveyard from mid December until end January – although both constitute a substantial cost, we plan our operations around it and integrate it into expected business behaviour. Typically there is an ongoing public debate about staffing shopping times to balance the enterprise opportunity. Doh - notice my first observations are expressed in business terms? Ha – three guesses what I love doing the most!!!:-) What about family or the various belief structures that value the “story” behind the holidays? What is it worth to take those four days over Easter and be with family and friends – take a break from work and just chill out and relax for a while? Bunning’s experiences quite a spike in sales as DIY purchases go through the roof while we garden and paint and renovate. My Greek in laws end their fast with quite the Sunday feast while my boys aspire to be the champion egg smasher year after year. With an appreciation but not a belief in the stories behind both the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic systems, I must admit that truly love attending Easter services in both churches to participate in and observe the ancient traditions. So what is the value of a holiday or holy day to any of us? When I look back, our family have never celebrated Easter to the same degree as Xmas. As a family who doesn’t like chocolate or sweets, Easter was more of a time to capitalise on the four day long weekend. We either performed at as many gigs as possible, or donned the Easter costumes braving shopping centres all over South East Qld as Chickens, Bunnies or Eggs. We’ve managed Festivals or run Seminars – renovated the house, caught up on office work OR taken a little holiday. In Oz, it is simply divine weather for Easter and indeed this is our travel industry high season – try driving to the Gold Coast on Easter Thursday afternoon? Conspiracy Theorists postulate that business is conspiring to remove the religion from Easter and Xmas by turning them into major commercial activities and removing trading restrictions so that “poor” employees have no option but to work over the holiday. What if the story behind these holidays was originally written for commercial mercantile reasons in the first place and organised religion was the easiest and most effective way to spam and sell the holiday to as many people as possible? If we conducted a profit and loss analysis of the Easter and Xmas holidays throughout the ages, I greatly suspect that the profit and loss would balance equally as it does today in the 21st century. But isn’t it fun watching those old Charlton Heston Easter movies OR Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”, toasting hot cross buns, hiding chocolate eggs in the geraniums, cooking the Easter Roast Lamb, smashing red boiled eggs and vacating your life for four days? Christos Anesti! Buona Pasqua! Happy Easter Everyone!