HOLIFEDS.BAT ============ by Stephen Ferg 1992 Dec 11 HOLIFEDS.BAT is a companion batch file to HOLIDAYS.BAT. It is designed specifically to be useful to employees of the Federal government. The purpose of HOLIFEDS.BAT is to aid Federal employees and managers in planning for holidays by calculating a list Federal holidays for a given year. It calculates both Federal holidays and days that -- because they fall between a holiday and a weekend (or another holiday) -- are likely to be popular as annual-leave days. FEDERAL HOLIDAYS ================ Calculating Federal holidays is a tricky business because there are three different types of Federal holiday: 1. Holidays that are fixed to a certain calendar date, such as July 4. These are what OPM calls "date-certain" holidays. 2. "Floating" holidays, that are attached to the Nth day-of-the-week in a certain month. Labor Day, for example, is the first Monday in September. A minor variation on this theme is Memorial Day, which is specified as being the LAST Monday in May. 3. Inauguration Day, which is in a class by itself. Here is the official Office of Personnel Management (OPM) description of how Federal holidays are determined for a given year. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- begin: OPM Federal Holidays Documentation ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEDERAL HOLIDAYS Federal holidays are always the same regardless of the calendar year. That is to say, the language of Title 5, United States Code, Section 6103, can be applied to any year simply by comparing the list of holidays to a calendar and marking the calendar. There are two things to keep in mind regarding holidays that are date certain (e.g., January 1, July 4, November 11, and December 25); first all such days which fall on Saturday will be celebrated on the preceding Friday and, secondly, all such days which fall on a Sunday will be celebrated on the succeeding Monday. Here is the list of Federal holidays for each year (there are 10): 1. New Year's Day, January 1 2. Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., the third Monday in January 3. Washington's Birthday, the third Monday in February 4. Memorial Day, the last Monday in May 5. Independence Day, July 4 6. Labor Day, the first Monday in September 7. Columbus Day, the second Monday in October 8. Veteran's Day, November 11 9. Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November 10. Christmas Day, December 25 Additionally, for employees employed in the District of Columbia, Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties in Maryland, Arlington & Fairfax Counties in Virginia, and the cities of Falls Church, and Alexandria, VA, January 20 of each fourth year after 1965, Inauguration Day, is a legal public holiday. If it falls on Sunday, it shall be the next succeeding day selected for the public observance of the President's inauguration. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information, write: United States Office of Personnel Management Washington, DC 20415 or telephone OPM at (202) 606-2858. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- end: OPM Federal Holidays Documentation ----------------------------------------------------------------------- There are some interesting aspects to this formula. NEW YEAR'S DAY ============== A holiday may be celebrated in a different year than the one in which it occurs. Specifically, if January 1 falls on a Saturday, it is celebrated on the preceeding Friday, which is December 31 of the preceding year. An example is New Year's Day, 1983, which was celebrated on the last day of 1982. INAUGURATION DAY ================ Every 4th year is Presidential Inauguration year. Inauguration Day is a date-certain holiday occurring on January 20. Federal employees who work in Washington, DC and the surrounding metropolitan area get Inauguration Day as a holiday, primarily to minimize traffic congestion on the day of the big event. For Federal employees working in other locations, Inauguration Day is not a holiday. Unlike other date-certain holidays, if Inauguration Day occurs on a Saturday, it is celebrated on the Saturday. Like other date-certain holidays, if Inauguration Day occurs on a Sunday, it is pushed to the following Monday, January 21. The interesting thing is that if January 20 or 21 falls on a Monday, it is the third Monday in January, and therefore it is also the occasion for celebrating Martin Luther King's birthday. So there are four different scenarios for Inauguration Day: Falls on a Saturday, so there is no special Federal holiday : 2001 Falls on a Sunday but moved to Monday (same as MLK birthday) : 1985 Falls on a Monday (same as MLK birthday) : 1997 Falls on Tuesday-Friday, Federal workers get an extra holiday: 1993 CHRISTMAS EVE ============= There is also an unofficial holiday tradition that the OPM formula does not mention. Traditionally, when Christmas Day falls on a Friday the President grants leave to Federal employees for the afternoon of the preceding Thursday, Christmas Eve. There is, however, nothing official about this tradition, and there have been presidents who did not adhere to it. Lyndon Johnson, for instance, did not grant leave to Federal employees on Thursday, Dec. 24, 1964. Why don't you run HOLIFEDS, specify the year as 1964, and see what it says about December 24?