Overheard at a coffee caravan in a country coastal town: “What day of the week is it? I never know at this time of year.”

“Who cares? That’s why we’re on holidays.”

Ain’t that the truth? Aside from religionists who mustn’t forget their day of worship and newspaper columnists on deadline, the week after Christmas means freedom from knowing what day it is. Freedom from Monday blues, from Tuesday traffic, from the Wednesday hump. Saturday night isn’t even on Saturday, it’s on New Year’s Eve, and the hangover might as well be on a Thursday. Who cares?

Illustration by Dionne Gain Credit:

End-of-year holidays are a time for contemplating how much of the holiday spirit you would like to import into the rest of the year. Night-time walks. Time in nature. Beach cricket. Card and board games with the family. No TV. More (or less) exercise. No phone reception. Turkey, prawns, fruitcake. And to fully fantasise: not knowing what day of the week it is.

Unlike the day, the month or the year, the seven-day week has no natural reason for being. It’s not governed by the sun or the moon. Its origins and continuance lie in religion and power. In his book The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are, the American historian David Henkin writes that the seven-day week originated with the Roman empire, so that’s another thing they left us along with the roads and the aqueducts. The Romans lined up weekdays with the........

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