It was the last week of 2021 when, here in Finland, Christmas and New Year all together gave us just one single day off. At that time, a conversation with my colleague Arto Miettunen, where he pointed out that 2021 wasn’t a great year for holidays, as most of them inconveniently fell on weekends, and that 2022 was going to be even worse, sparked my curiosity about this topic.

This raised the question: which years are better and which are worse when it comes to maximizing time off at home? Well, well, well, my trusty procrastination machine managed to delay getting to this question for nearly three years. But now, thanks to the generosity of the 2024 calendar and the extra time Christmas 2024 gave me, I finally had enough days off to dig into this burning question.

Holiday types in Finland

In Finland, as in many other countries, holidays can be classified into two main categories. The first category includes fixed-date holidays, which always fall on the same calendar date each year, such as Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Independence Day. The second category includes weekday-fixed holidays, which occur on specific days of the week rather than a fixed date. For example, Easter-related holidays like Good Friday and Easter Monday are always observed on a Friday and a Monday, respectively, ensuring the same number of days off each year.

# Holiday Date / Rule Category Always on Weekend?
1 New Year’s Day January 1 Fixed-date No
2 Epiphany January 6 Fixed-date No
3 Good Friday Friday before Easter Weekday-fixed No
4 Easter Sunday First Sunday after the first full moon of spring Weekday-fixed Yes
5 Easter Monday Monday after Easter Weekday-fixed No
6 May Day (Vappu) May 1 Fixed-date No
7 Ascension Day 40 days after Easter Weekday-fixed No
8 Pentecost 7th Sunday after Easter Weekday-fixed Yes
9 Midsummer Eve (Juhannusaatto) Friday between June 19-25 Weekday-fixed No
10 Midsummer Day (Juhannuspäivä) Saturday between June 20-26 Weekday-fixed Yes
11 All Saints’ Day Saturday between October 31-November 6 Weekday-fixed Yes
12 Independence Day December 6 Fixed-date No
13 Christmas Eve December 24 Fixed-date No
14 Christmas Day December 25 Fixed-date No
15 St. Stephen’s Day (Tapaninpäivä) December 26 Fixed-date No

Looking at this list, we can see there are 15 public holidays, four of which are always fixed on weekends. While some of these Saturday holidays might have side effects, such as impacting jobs operating on that day, bus schedules (which follow Sunday timetables), or being treated as Sundays when calculating annual vacation (i.e., not counted as a regular Saturday), these nuances fall outside the scope of this data dive. So, for simplicity, let’s focus on the 11 remaining holidays. Of these, four are weekday-fixed and therefore immune to landing on a weekend. This leaves us with seven holidays that fluctuate and are central to our question.

How I did the dive

To answer the question of which years are better or worse for holidays in Finland, I turned to my trusty toolkit: Python. Using the library holidays for holiday calculation in each year, and datetime for date calculations. I tried to map out Finland’s public holidays from 2000 to 2050.

The General Perspective: Lucky Holiday Years

A lucky year has 10 public holidays falling on weekdays, and obviously it’s not possible to get all 11 at once. So, it looks that 10 days is the maximum luck we can have.

Distribution of Public Holidays Not on Weekends (2000–2050)
Figure 1: Distribution of Public Holidays Not on Weekends (2000–2050). Click the image to see it in full size.

The year 2024 emerges as an example of a lucky year, with 10 holidays on weekdays, including Christmas and New Year’s falling perfectly to maximize days off. In contrast, 2022 stands out as a bad year, with only 7 “real” holidays, making it one of the least generous in the data set. The good news is that 2025 is as good as 2024, and we are far from another 2022. So, it seems that my colleague’s point about 2022 was right.

Holidays and Weekends: The Eternal Struggle

The number of weekends also varies from year to year, which directly impacts the total number of days off we can enjoy (excluding annual leave). Here’s a visual representation of total days off across different years:

Total Days Off Each Year (2000–2050)
Figure 2: Total Days Off Each Year (2000–2050). Click the image to see it in full size.

The data shows that the maximum number of days off in a year can reach 115, while the worst-case scenario is 112 days (as seen in 2022). In comparison, 2024 treated us kindly with a generous 114 days off.

Public Holidays in annual perspetive: The “Holiday Desert”

Let’s use the Python library seaborn to create a calendar snapshot that reveals how holidays are distributed throughout the year. Which parts of the year offer more opportunities to enjoy time at home?

Distribution of Public Holidays Not on Weekends in the 2020s
Figure 3: Distribution of public holidays not falling on weekends in the 2020s. Click the image to see it in full size.

In the chart, each cell represents the number of holidays in a specific month of a given year, with colors indicating the frequency: darker blue for months with more holidays and lighter shades for fewer. For instance, December 2024 stands out with four holidays (dark blue), making it a particularly generous month, while months like July and August remain holiday “deserts” with zero holidays (light yellow).

Explore the Code

If you’d like to explore the code and replicate this analysis, the full source code is available in my GitHub repository: DATA-FinlandHolidaysAnalysis. Feel free to fork it, experiment, and share your insights!

P.S. - Further Reading in YLE

While making this blog post, I noticed a similar analysis in YLE’s article, which also explores the alignment of public holidays with weekdays. Both insights highlight the significance of maximizing holidays for extended weekends, but there are some differences in focus. The YLE article specifically delves into holiday placement for 2025 and provides practical tips for planning vacations around long weekends. In contrast, my analysis takes a broader view, examining holiday patterns over several decades (2000–2050) and offering insights into the best and worst years for holidays overall. If you’re curious about a detailed breakdown of 2025 holidays, the YLE article is a great read!