A
civic holiday,
civil holiday,
public holiday,
legal holiday, or
work holiday is a day that is
legally recognized and celebrated as a
holiday in a particular
sovereign state or
jurisdictional subdivision of such, e.g., a
state or a
province. It is usually a day that the
legislature,
parliament,
congress, or
sovereign has declared by
statute,
edict, or
decree as a non-working day when the official arms of
government such as the
court system are closed. In
federal states there may also be different holidays for the constituent states or provinces, as in the United States where holidays that were established by the federal government are called
federal holidays. Such days may or may not be counted in calculating the
statute of limitations in legal actions and are usually days when
non-custodial parents are given alternating visitation or
access to their children from a prior
marriage or relationship according to a parenting schedule.