Since moving to the US, I've noticed that Americans really don't celebrate holidays, as such, but use them, instead, to punctuate shopping seasons. I mention this, because I woke up this morning and wondered to myself: "Isn't it Easter soon?", not noticing that today is in fact Good Friday, the start of the most important religious holiday in the Christian calendar.
In the UK and the rest of Europe, this is a long weekend, with both today and Monday as holidays, and there's usually a huge buildup. But, here, in the US, the stock market (and the banks, post office and other federal offices too) is closed, but other than that, unless you were paying attention, you could easily miss, as I did, all the signs of Easter.
And this comes to the fundamental bone I have to pick with the Rollers, who claim that this is a Christian country, and that Christmas needs to be saved, but yet do nothing wrt Easter. Now you might think, as an atheist, that I have no skin in this particular game. But you'd be mistaken, because culturally I am a Christian (1/2 Church of England, 1/2 Catholic), and even though I don't believe, I do take great comfort in the social constructs and traditions imposed on our western society over the years by the Church.
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