Waitangi Day? I've enjoyed days at Waitangi itself, but despite attempts to establish the Treaty as a founding document for this country I'm too aware that it really was a calculated attempt by the British to claim dominion over this land.
Too much post-colonial guilt for it to feel like a holiday should. And not everyone in the country seems to be uniformly celebrating the day, so it feels awkward, like a work function where there are unresolved tensions between management and staff. You just can't quite get into it.
I like the length of Easter, but chocolate eggs and bunnies mashed-up with the biblical story of Christ's death on the cross and rising a few days later doesn't do much for me.
I understand that Anzac Day means a lot to some people. It's the kind of holiday - commemoration is a better word - that I'm looking for, something with a depth of feeling. It's just that the nationalist myth-making, the ties it still reinforces to Western powers, the uniforms and hierarchies, don't sit well with my anarchist-inclined tastes.
Labour Day is an interesting one. We got that in 1900 to mark the struggle by unions to achieve an eight-hour working day. But not much is made of it, really. A symptom perhaps of New Zealand's working-class history being so successfully removed from our everyday consciousness. A kind of collective lobotomy, as if we've all been playing Mike Hosking through headphones at night.
Our line-up of public holidays just feels tired and stale to me. Traditions and continuity are all well and good, but change is necessary too.
So I'm joining the chorus of people calling for Matariki, the Māori New Year, to become our newest holiday season. A chance for reflection, hearty dinners and public festivals of art and entertainment.
It should be two days off, one either side of a weekend in June. Replace the outdated Queen's Birthday and then increase our public holiday count by one to 12 (still behind Australia's 13).
I have in mind a truly internationalist holiday. Yes, with perspective indigenous to this land, but mid-winter celebrations are common to most cultures around the world.
Under the umbrella of Matariki, celebrations could reflect the full diversity of communities that have come to Aotearoa. Some by following the stars long ago, others more recently watching movies on the backseat of the airline passengers in front of them.
It should be a holiday season that combines local belonging with a global consciousness. A holiday fit for that purpose is something I could embrace wholeheartedly.
Matariki, it's in the stars.
■ Vaughan Gunson is a writer and poet interested in social justice and big issues facing the planet.
