Today is the final day of the four-day holiday weekend for Easter. I’ve talked about these holidays, and thier oddities, many times, but this year several things were different, including one thing I mussed last year. Combined, this Easter weekend was unlike all the others in my 30 years in New Zealand.
Last Wednesday, the New Zealand Parliament passed a Member’s Bill to streamline the rules for bars and restaurtants selling alcohol on the three and a half days a year with unusual sales restrictions: Good Friday, Easter, ANZAC Day morning, and Christmas Day. The Governor General provided Royal Assent the next day, and the new law was in place for Good Friday (and Easter, obviously). To me, the reforms were simply common sense reforms.
There was one other thing that was new this year: This year, for the first time, TV commercials were broadcast on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The thing is, Parliament passed the law back in October, but for whatever reason I never mentioned it. Whatever the reason for that oversight, the first of the three and a half holidays tihe the change was Christmas last year, but I was with family all day and not watching television, so I wouldn’t have noticed anything (though I don’t know whether I would’ve noticed if I had seen TV that day). I also wouldn;t have noticed that ads were broadcast on Sundays because I don’t turn the TV on until 5 or 6pm.
I was glad to see the ad ban removed, even though I think ads are mostly annoying, but forbidding ads on broadcast TV when it didn’t apply to streaming services, including YouTube. There was no reason to force NZ broadcasters to take a financial hit that didn’t apply to anyone else. As it happens, in my post on Easter Monday last year, I talked about mo bill having passed Parliament, and that was actually an update to something I said in a post on Easter Monday in 2024. Yet despite my interest in the topic, I nevertheless seem to have missed the news when the bill finally passed. Oh, well.
This particular Easter Weekend also had to unusual add-ons. The latest school holidays began on Good Friday because that was a public holiday (they’ll end on April 19). The other thing that happened this weekend was that we changed our clocks on Sunday. Apparently, on Sunday NZ parents (as recounted on Facebook) were complaining about their children waking up at 4am demanding chocolate, which doesn’t sound ideal.
So, for many reasons, this Easter weekend was unlike all the others in my 30 years in New Zealand. Fortunately, I think all the changes were good ones. Well, except for sleep-deprived parents having to cope with kids high on sugar. Fortunately, all those coincidence of dates don’t happen every year: Next year, Easter will be on March 28.
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