We spent much of the latter part of 1999 tracking Millennium-related holiday changes. In the end, 113 the 257 Centers that we published at the time declared a special holiday on December 31, 1999, while 43 did so on January 3, 2000. A handful of Centers also declared extra holidays on December 30 and January 4.

As a result, 1999 was a record year for holidays.

The reason there was so much anxiety and discussion about holiday occurrences over the millennium is because January 1, 2000 fell on a Saturday. Holiday observances depend crucially upon the day of the week on which the holiday falls. If a holiday occurs on a weekend, does it roll forward to the next business day, backward to the previous one, or is it lost altogether? The answer varies from Center to Center. Most commonly, however, the holiday is lost. Hence all the concern.

You can see the dramatic impact of weekends by looking at the chart below. For example, when January 1 falls on a Wednesday, 250 of our 257 Centers will be on holiday. And in total over the four day New Year period, there will be 356 holiday closures. However, when January 1 falls on a Saturday in a normal year, 68 Centers will be closed on December 31, 24 on January 1 itself and 63 on Monday, January 3, for a total of 155. (If you’re wondering why holidays can fall on a Saturday or Sunday, remember that some Centers do not observe the standard Saturday/Sunday weekend. Also, the reason why the total number of holidays is greater than the number of Centers is that some observe more than one holiday over the New Year period.)

Interestingly, despite all the extra holidays that were declared, there still were fewer holidays over this New Year than there would have been—without any extra holidays—had January 1 instead fallen on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Some Centers announced an extra holiday around the millennium due to the Y2K computer problem—but that was just a convenient excuse. The real reason was to give people what they would receive naturally if January 1 only fell on a different day.

February 4, 2000

Copyright © Swaps Monitor Publications, Inc., 2008.