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Title
1. This act shall be cited as the Wintreath Holidays Act.

Holidays
2. “First Day of Eternal Winter” is on the seventeenth (17th) day of October. It recognizes the date when Wintreath’s history began, thus, the first day of our eternal winter.
3. “Constitution Day” is on the twenty-fifth (25th) day of December. It recognizes and remembers the date when the Fundamental Laws of Wintreath were ratified, and as such saw the enactment of a Constitution for our region, community, and people.
4. The Monarch may, at his/her discretion, declare days and times of Festivities and Thanksgiving provided such declarations do not conflict with any Holiday described within this act or any other relevant laws.
5. New holidays may be also be established by amendments to this act.

Celebration
6. In a desire to promote the celebration and festivities of these dates, the standard operation of the Storting will be suspended. The Underhusen and Overhusen will agree to delay the introduction of new bills, the commencement of voting, and any handling of any non-important legislative matters granted that they had not begun before the holiday. The Chairman of the Overhusen and Speaker of the Underhusen are given discretion on these matters.
7. On declarations of Festivities and Thanksgiving by the Monarch, the Speaker of the Underhusen and Chairman of the Overhusen may declare such suspension of activities as if it were a Holiday but are not required to do so.

Just something that crossed my mind earlier.
I'm introducing this for debate, but please note this the first draft, and a very rough one at that.

This bill was introduced by Chanku during the 28th term but saw no discussion, and I thought it might be a nice idea. I've reintroduced it here with grammar and wording corrections as necessary.

@Wuufu
@Wintermoot
@Aragonn
@Cinciri
@trader

for the Overhusen's convenience

@North
@Chanku
@Elbbsas
@Gabrielle

I'd highly recommend checking up on this thread every so often to look at citizens' concerns. I will certainly be doing so myself.

Was going to point out the missing period in title clause but Elbbsas has already done so and much more .

@Katie Sounds good! 

A Holiday's act was something that I myself have written at least once when I was in a NS legislative body. This has my support.

I think the founding of the region isn't important if it wasn't doing anything in the first week or so. Even its provisional government still in the drafting stages by the 21st and so I would base the holiday off of the beginning of Wintreath as a true, functioning state with citizens and a government.

However, the two dates are actually several months apart, one in October and the other in December. The founding date is actually fairly important; it's the birth of the community, and also the one Wintermoot has commemorated every year, and also an event that, as Wintermoot describes in said commemorations, is rather symbolic of the Wintrean community and its character/ideals.

I also think we should add a Christmas or December Solstice holiday, like Yule, or maybe make Summersend an official holiday. What do y'all think?

Do note that the Fundamental Laws were ratified Christmas Day 2013.

Edit: spelling

@taulover yes yes yes that was already pointed out to me, thank you

I think the founding of the region isn't important if it wasn't doing anything in the first week or so. Even its provisional government still in the drafting stages by the 21st and so I would base the holiday off of the beginning of Wintreath as a true, functioning state with citizens and a government.

Just to clarify, while the Wintrean government formed slowly, the Wintrean community developed quickly...we had an IRC channel on the first day that was active from the get-go, and we had forums on the second day. There wasn't much in the way of government activity yet, but I wouldn't say the community wasn't doing anything.

@Wintermoot My apologies. We can keep the dates as they are.

Also, what is your opinion on the suggestion put forth by @Chanku : adding Monarch discretion into the bill (in relation to the addition of more holidays in the future)?

Edit: I have added new sections - 4 and 7 - and moved section 5 to the Holidays section.

@Wintermoot My apologies. We can keep the dates as they are.

Also, what is your opinion on the suggestion put forth by @Chanku : adding Monarch discretion into the bill (in relation to the addition of more holidays in the future)?

I don't know...I'm sure it wouldn't harm anything, but I'm not sure it'd ever occur to me to declare a holiday. I'm not even sure it's important for something to be declared an official holiday...holidays spring up and grow organically, and being made official just recognizes that it's already an important day that people celebrate. Outside maybe Summersend, do we really celebrate anything other than the occasional LGBT holidays?

I think what would really matter if we want to have more holidays is having a meaning behind it that resonates with people and giving them ways to celebrate that meaning...you can declare holidays until the cow comes home, but if people don't celebrate them then they're meaningless. So I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I doubt I would ever use the power unless something was already being celebrated unofficially and having a major impact on our culture.

Other than that, I'd shift (4) above (2), because if any more holidays are declared in accordance with (5), they'll require every other point to shift down a space. Plus, it's a decent introduction to the act as a whole (as opposed to throwing the reader into the holidays immediately). I still recommend that the "ways to celebrate" should go before defining the individual holidays and be modified accordingly, but I can see that's not getting any traction.

Everything else would need to get shifted down anyway (the amendment and celebration provisions) though.

I'm also not sure if opening with the Monarch power is necessarily better, especially if (as Moot says) he won't be using it much if at all. Whereas the declared holidays would by law need to be observed.

I don't know...I'm sure it wouldn't harm anything, but I'm not sure it'd ever occur to me to declare a holiday. I'm not even sure it's important for something to be declared an official holiday...holidays spring up and grow organically, and being made official just recognizes that it's already an important day that people celebrate. Outside maybe Summersend, do we really celebrate anything other than the occasional LGBT holidays?

I think what would really matter if we want to have more holidays is having a meaning behind it that resonates with people and giving them ways to celebrate that meaning...you can declare holidays until the cow comes home, but if people don't celebrate them then they're meaningless. So I don't have a strong opinion either way, but I doubt I would ever use the power unless something was already being celebrated unofficially and having a major impact on our culture.

Well if that's the case, perhaps we should add Summersend as a holiday? Holidays can last more than one day, I might remind everybody.

Well if that's the case, perhaps we should add Summersend as a holiday? Holidays can last more than one day, I might remind everybody.

What does Summersend celebrate? Does it have a meaning that people appreciate and want to celebrate? Those answers should help clarify if it's become an actual holiday or if it's still merely a festival.

Well if that's the case, perhaps we should add Summersend as a holiday? Holidays can last more than one day, I might remind everybody.

What does Summersend celebrate? Does it have a meaning that people appreciate and want to celebrate? Those answers should help clarify if it's become an actual holiday or if it's still merely a festival.

Where are we drawing the distinction between a festival and a holiday? If we're going by dictionary/Wikipedia definitions, where a holiday is a time when ordinary business is suspended, either by custom or law, I'd think Summersend is already the closest thing we have to that—we see a marked drop in activity in other parts of the region in favor of the Summersend festivities instead.

On the other hand, going by dictionary/Wikipedia definitions, a festival, not holiday, is the event that should have some community meaning and something that we're celebrating of cultural importance. In this case, I think it's pretty clear that we're celebrating the end of summer and thus the soon-to-come winter on which our region is themed. This reminds me of what is in some sense the opposite holiday: Spring Festival, or the Lunar New Year, which celebrates the coming of spring and is the major festival and holiday in most of East/Southeast Asia.

Everything else would need to get shifted down anyway (the amendment and celebration provisions) though.

Very true! I'm not lobbying for celebrations to go first to avoid that happening or anything. =P