This coming Tuesday, March 19, is Father's Day in Spain. It is a public holiday. Banks and all the stores will be closed. Father's Day has been celebrated nationally in Spain on this date since 1951. March 19 was chosen because, in the Catholic calendar, it is also the feast day of San José. There is something very fitting about celebrating fatherhood in connection with the person who was the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus, who the world knows as a simple carpenter but who must have been a humble and very accepting father.
El Día del Padre is a little different this year. Since it falls on a Tuesday, the Spanish temptation is to hacer un puente, to make a bridge, from the weekend to the holiday; in other words, to have a long weekend without having to go to work. And the calendar cooperated, for this year January 6, which is Los Reyes, Three Kings Day, or Epiphany, happened to fall on a Sunday, a day that is not normally a work day at all. So workers were "cheated" out of a day off, except that they voted, or decided somehow, to move Reyes to Monday, March 18, the day between the weekend and Día del Padre. Not the actual celebration of Reyes, of course, but the official day off from work. This provides the perfect bridge to a long, long weekend.
That's why I am not having my municipally sponsored Spanish lesson tomorrow morning, because it is the public holiday that workers did not have in January. Signs have been up in the grocery stores saying that they will be open for part of the day on this substitute holiday on Monday, and we are hoping that some professional offices will be open--accountants are what we are after now--but I am betting we will be disappointed. That means we will most likely have to wait until Wednesday to touch base with the accountant, because Tuesday, is definitely a holiday for all, and nothing will be open. Stores and shops will be fined if they are open to conduct business on this day--unless they are in the leisure or hospitality business, that is.
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