Despite what many new signers of this petition might think, this campaign does not actually live up to its title, and my updates quite clearly point that out!
The five-week Easter date gap (calculated by the Julian and Gregorian calendars) is NOT the actual problem - the real issue is that the “shameful seven” nations treat Orthodox/Coptic holidays as if they don’t exist, such as retailers clearing out Easter treats, outdoor venues ceasing Easter activities and governments failing to provide bank holidays for the Orthodox population in these regions.
Quite simply, Orthodox Christmas and Orthodox Easter are really just the same as “Christmas” and “Easter” just celebrated on different calendar days, yet because they are the same celebrations at “Christmas” and “Easter”, and not different like Lunar New Year and Diwali, they quite simply go unrecognised in countries like the UK!
What make me angry (not a neurodivergent triggers) is that UK supermarkets have tried to be inclusive and have stock in for “different” holidays and observances like Chinese New Year, yet they clear out seasonal stock like mince pies, turkeys, Christmas crackers and chocolate eggs long before the Orthodox holidays arrive.
Many people believe that the Christmas festivities are over once the clock strikes 12 on January 2nd (the day after New Years’s Day), but the first week of January is actually bombarded with Christmas-related feasts on three consecutive back-to-back days (Twelfth Night on the 5th, Epiphany on the 6th and Orthodox Christmas on the 7th), so an extension of school breaks by a week would not only benefit Western and Orthodox pupils, but removing a week from the school summer holidays would distribute school holiday lengths more evenly, I have provided a direct link to a 2026 petition about this very issue!
https://www.change.org/p/shorten-the-summer-holidays-lengthen-the-christmas-holidays
While many people believe that keeping up Christmas decorations beyond either Twelfth Night or Epiphany is bad luck, it shows complete and utter disrespect towards the Orthodox community and I urge all my supporters to keep up Christmas decorations and trimmings until what I call “Orthodoxing Day” (8th January), a portmanteau of Orthodox and Boxing!
Although I obviously knew about other religious festivals such as Diwali, I only first learned about Orthodox Christmas and Orthodox Easter in August last year when I started my early preparation for my personalised 2026 calendars for my aunt and uncle. Although my date fixation was a negative experience overall, it has made me learn about Orthodox Christians and want to respect the Orthodox community so it has been a learning curve.
This is certainly not just a petition, it has been a way to document my life experience without having to publish a novel and each update represents a chapter. I even have a dedicated Word document where I type out my campaign updates before I cut and paste into the “your update” section.
I also ordered an extra Alice in Wonderland duvet set on Amazon.co.uk (ones from the 1951 “UK Orthodox Christian disaster year” animated film) on April 5th which were delivered on Orthodox Good Friday (April 10th)!
About my other past fixations:
My previous update explains how “weird” some of my past fixations have been, such as wanting a car/boat/train/plane travelling at 10mph to make a “J” sound because “J” is the 10th letter of the alphabet and thinking there was a magical land in a window AC unit. I want neurotypical people to understand that we are not weird, just different!
I also have a “Christmas Bath Cycle” tradition when I have to have a bath at a certain time of day which repeats every four years and I only ever eat pears in November!
On car journeys from London to Cardiff/South Wales, I would want my father to come off the M4 at J12 and drive towards Didcot and Wantage before rejoining the M4 at J15 near Swindon, to follow the route of the Great Western Main Line - I was getting my father to do that as recently as 2024!
On car journeys from Liverpool to London, I would want my father to come off the M40 at J11 by Banbury and then drive down past Brackley, Buckingham and Winslow towards a village in Buckinghamshire called Cublington in the Aylesbury Vale and through Aston Abbotts before joining the A41 near Aylesbury, eventually joining the M25 at J20 near Watford to match the route flights from destinations such as Aberdeen make their way into Heathrow after analysing flight paths on flightradar24 (an obsession I had when I witnessed the second-latest Easter date in 2011). We were also doing those journeys as recently as 2024!
I had an obsession with swimming pools and imagined a low ceiling room at the shallow end/high ceiling room at the deep end and I also had an irrational fear of the Class 159 DMU trains for many years after one stopped at Wimbledon in June 2004 during the tennis and I shook a Wall’s twister lolly!
The first two letters of my real surname are “As”, could be Aston, could be Ashcroft and my real date of birth is 22nd February 1993, this campaign was launched five days after my 33rd birthday on a car journey to RHS Wisley Gardens.
Here is a direct link to another one of my own petitions launched the same day as this one (though with far fewer signatures), which I urge you all to also sign:
https://www.change.org/p/give-individual-natural-letter-names-to-the-black-piano-keys
I hope to reach 1,000 signatures by Orthodoxing Day (January 8th) after my artificial light evening bath on Christmas Day 2026!