On January 28, 1915, President of ChileRamón Barros Luco promulgated law 2,977, which arranged all the information insofar about holidays celebrated in Chile. It established or kept the following holidays:
The same law abolished, by omission, four religious holidays: Epiphany, Carnival, Annunciation and Nativity of the Virgin Mary. It also shortened the national independence holiday to two days. On November 14, 1921, President Arturo Alessandri Palma promulgated Law 3,810, marking October 12 as holiday. On April 30, 1931, President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo promulgated the "Decree Enforceable as Law" 130, marking May 1 as holiday. In 1932, Provisional President Bartolomé Blanche reinstated the September 20 holiday, which existed until 1944. In 1968, the holidays of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Ascension of Jesus Christ and Corpus Christi were eliminated by Article 144 of Law 16,840. The Catholic Church agreed to celebrate them on the nearest Sunday. September 11 was established as a holiday by the military regime in 1981. In 1998 it was replaced by the Día de la Unidad Nacional, to be observed the first Monday in September. In March 2002 the latter was abolished. The holiday on June 29 was reestablished in September 1985. In 1987, during a visit by Pope John Paul II, Corpus Christi was reestablished. On March 10, 2000, Law 19,668 moved the Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Columbus Day and Corpus Christi holidays to the preceding Monday, if they were to fall on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or to the following Monday, if they were to fall on a Friday. Additionally, the designation of Columbus Day was changed from Aniversario del Descubrimiento de América to Día del Descubrimiento de Dos Mundos, an obvious corruption from the then-recent ubiquitous "Encuentro de dos mundos" slogan. On January 6, 2007, Law 20,148 replaced Corpus Christi with Our Lady of Mount Carmel, to be observed July 16, starting that year. On September 14, 2007, Law 20,215. declared holidays all September 17s falling on a Monday and all September 20s falling on a Friday. On October 11, 2008, Law 20,299 established Reformation Day on October 31 as a national holiday, starting that year. This holiday is moved to the preceding Friday if it falls on a Tuesday, or to the following Friday if it falls on a Wednesday. On April 30, 2013, Law 20,663 established the regional Battle of Arica holiday, to be observed only in the Arica and Parinacota region. On December 30, 2016, Law 20,983 declared as holidays those days that are Monday January 2 or Friday September 17. Besides yearly holidays, since 1901 presidential elections are declared holidays, as mandated by successive versions of the General Elections law. Since the late 20th century, parliamentary and municipal elections are also public holidays. Censuses, held every ten years, are also declared holidays since 1982; that year's census and 1992's were so due to ad-hoc laws; censuses taken from 1992 onwards are declared holidays due to a reform in the Census law.
Meaning of the January 1 holiday
Shortly after Chile's independence, an 1824 Church decree reduced the amount of religious holidays, enumerating and the surviving holidays, including the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, observed on January 1. Law 2,977 lists this holiday by date only, without using any name, but does treat it as religious one. However, nowadays it's widely celebrated as the New Year holiday. As a matter of fact, there aren't any known regulations later than 1915 that use the "Circumcision of Christ" name, while "New Year" is used by numerous regulations of all types, decree-laws , decrees enforceable as law , ministerial decrees and resolutions and municipal decrees and ordinances.
