🇬🇧 Easter & Good FridayEaster Weekend · Holy Weekend · Paschal Triduum

Easter is the central feast of the Christian liturgical year, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus on the third day after his crucifixion. The date is moveable, computed by the Western church as the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox — which means Easter Sunday falls anywhere from March 22 to April 25.

In the UK, Easter is a four-day public holiday cluster: Good Friday (the Friday before Easter) and Easter Monday (the day after Easter Sunday) are both bank holidays in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland; Scotland observes Good Friday but not always Easter Monday in the same way. The cluster's predictability — Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday off, every year, no PTO required — makes it the most efficient bank-holiday window of the British calendar after Christmas. Many UK employers also informally extend the cluster by closing on the Thursday before (Maundy Thursday) and/or Tuesday after.

Religious observance has declined sharply over the past two generations, but the secular elements — chocolate eggs, hot cross buns, lamb roasts, the Easter weekend break itself — remain entrenched. Hot cross buns specifically are baked in the UK from late February onward; supermarkets compete on flavour variations annually. The Easter Bunny tradition (originating in 18th-century German Protestant Pennsylvania) crossed back into the UK via mid-20th-century US influence.

Travel patterns split into two: short-haul European city breaks (Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona) sell out months ahead, and UK domestic resort towns (the Lake District, the Cotswolds, Cornwall, the Scottish Highlands) hit their first major crowd of the year. School term timings vary: most state schools take a two-week Easter break that may or may not include the bank-holiday weekend depending on Easter's calendar position. When Easter falls early (late March), the bank-holiday weekend often sits inside the school break; when it falls late (mid-to-late April), the school break can finish before Easter Sunday.

For PTO planners the magic of Easter is that you don't need any. The four-day Friday-Monday weekend is automatic. Adding Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday turns it into 9 days off for 3 PTO; adding the full surrounding two weeks (often coinciding with school holidays) turns it into 16 days off for 8 PTO.