Lets celebrate these holidays in PHD Style. By learning few excel formulas that you can use to find out dates for some of the popular public holidays like – labor day, memorial day etc.

When is Labor Day (US) in 2010?
Labor day (the US variant) is celebrated on first Monday of every September. It occurs on Sep 6th in 2010.
Using excel date formulas, you can easily find out the labor day’s date for any given year.
Here is the formula I have used:
How this formula works?
The formula finds the weekday of first of September (WEEKDAY(DATE(2010,9,1))) and then uses this information to return one of the possible dates for first Monday.
You can use similar logic to find dates for other holidays like Thanksgiving day (both US and Canada), Memorial Day and Martin Luther King Day.
Is there a long weekend for New Years Day in 2011?
You can use excel to answer questions like whether there will be a long weekend for a given holiday. A long weekend occurs when the holiday is on either Thursday or Monday. So for example, you can check the long weekend condition for January 1st, 2011 like this:
How this formula works?
That is your homework. Go figure!
Download Example Worksheet and Learn by Playing with the Formulas
I have prepared a simple worksheet with 8 examples to calculate the dates for Thanksgiving dates, New years Day of Week, Martin Luther King Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Indian variants of Independence and Republic Days. Go ahead and download the example workbook and play with it.
Related Material:
Help on formulas used in this tutorial: WEEKDAY Formula | IF Formula | OR Formula | 75 Excel Formulas – My eBook.
More examples and tutorials on Excel Date Formulas and Features.

















30 Responses to “Great News: Chandoo becomes MVP”
Congratulations! It's well deserved. 🙂
This is amazing. Hearty congratulations and a rocking new year ahead!!!
Congrats! I have learnt alot from your site... and the most important is learning how to achieve the most with the simplest concepts.
Thanks for the excel calendar. Is it possible to get a simple big fonted calendar printable on an A4 size paper without any distracive notes or visuals? BTW, I have already signed up for your newsletter. With warm regards and
Gratefully yours
50+ year old CHarish.
Hey Chandoo,
Great to hear that. Congratulations! The best new year gift, I would say. Keep it up, u've been doing extraordinary work for the excel users community.
Regards,
Pankaj Verma
Congrats dude... fantastic news!
congratulations! your site is great, this is well deserved
Rich
I recently found your site, I visit many. The tips that you provide are in the top 1% of all the sites I visit. Keep on Excelling.
Arnold
South Africa
Congratulations, Chandoo! That's a great way to start the year and make the PHD even better.
Congratulations, Chandoo.
Your site is one of most useful on the net. Happy new year and lot of ideas you will present for us.
Congrats.
Just read your name in an email from Abhishek. Well deserved.
Congratulations, and Happy New Year.
Greetings from Rio de Janeiro my friend! You trully deserve it!
Nive way to start 2009! Keep up the good work!
FC
That was quite forseeable , so you have now really got your PhD in excel.
Anyways Chandoo you have made excel a real Fun doo
I will like you to write some more on INDEX and MATCH function in near future.
@Hey Chandoo ! Congrates....
Ab to treat mangta hai !
Well deserved Chandoo!!
Congrat's!! Very well deserved 🙂
i always browsed mr.excel and used to see MVP writtne below names of people who used to solve queries in excel forum there......i just used to admire as to what they have special in them that they are MVP......
but now i got my answer...............u deserve it man..........
@All: thanks everyone 🙂
Congratulations Chandoo, nice job!
Chandoo,
A well deserved recognition and a good start to the New Year. Continue your good work.
Subbu
Many Congratulations.
You deserve a Ph.D. 🙂
congrats.....
Congrats dude. Rock on!
[...] charting community in 2007 and has been growing strongly ever since. In year 2009, I have received the MVP award from Microsoft. Just few days back I have become a dad [...]
Respected sir,
I am impressed!.... Good job done.. Keep it up...
Sir, How to be a MVP certified person. What level of knowledge is required for it? send me links if possible.
Please reply...
Regards,
Dipak Khalasi.
Dipak -
The first thing you need to cultivate is the ability to search the web effectively. You could start by Googling "Microsoft MVP".
[...] boy and girl which has been made hectic and incredibly fun ever since to their life.He has been awarded MVP status in 2009 by Microsoft(and renewed in 2010,2011 & 2012).His MVP profile is here.If you want to contact him direct then [...]
Congrats Chandoo!!
[…] Chandoo becomes MVP […]