HOLIDAYS have of course developed from the medieval 'holy days' celebrated during the major Christian festivals, especially at Easter, Christmas, and Whitsun, but have their real origins in a much more ancient neolithic pre-Christian nature and sun worshipping past, which celebrated the changing seasons of the sun, whose seasonal warmth was so vital for human survival and livelihood. The midwinter solstice engendered ancient fears that the sun might not return, and so the ancient festivals tended to be frightening and sacrificial, and Christian missionaries deliberately replaced this with Christmas festival celebrations of hope and joy, even though the actual date of the birth of Christ was completely unknown. The spring equinox on the other hand involved celebrations of new life with the return of the sun, and the conquest of light over darkness. Christian celebrations of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ were able simply to reinforce and use the same theme spiritually.

The origin of summer holidays seems on the other hand to be related to village communities gathering in various harvests of cereals, fruits, and berries, which originally involved a change of lifestyle for the whole family in order to ensure that a sufficient abundance of food for the winter could be gathered in and stored in the big old farm barns. This period was celebrated in England during Christian times by church bells being rung throughout the gathering of the harvest, partly no doubt to summon help as well as to celebrate the harvest. It included haymaking for animals and was a time of festivity and merrymaking, with time off school for children to help until comparatively recently. Given the different times of ripening for different foodstuffs and varying seasonal weather patterns the time required tended to involve longer periods of communal availability, and of course merged into the harvest celebrations which marked its end.  But the autumn equinox in pre-Christian times involved both harvest celebrations of thanksgiving as well as fears of death during the coming winter. Formal Christian Harvest Thanksgiving services were introduced only relatively recently, but the feast of All Hallows (All Saints) was clearly introduced to counter pagan fears of death with celebrations of the heroic lives and deaths of martyrs and other saints.

As we depart for our summer holidays we might reflect how our holidays originated not just in relaxation but in refreshing changes of occupation. Those of us with young children may however find holidays away exacting enough to require a further more restful holiday afterwards at home!