It's easy to forget to acknowledge the passage of time in a children's cartoon, especially one that airs on a weekly basis. Every week, you come back, there's a new episode, and you assume that you pick up where you left off. However, this has to be far from the truth... or at least it was initially. In the first 2 seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, there was a distinct change of seasons, marked by some rather important episodes, but things were a bit awkward at first. Let's take a look at Season 1.

~Season 1~
For starters, I'd like to put forth the notion that the Summer Sun Celebration isn't actually the first day of Summer, but is in-fact, a mid-season celebration. This allows the events of Episode 4 - “Applebuck Season” to make a little more sense. Given that Applebuck Season is the Equestrian equivalent of Harvest Season, and that there are a wide variety of apples, some of which come into season during late summer and some not until mid or late autumn, we can build on this and say that the episode was most likely the beginning of the harvest season, and not a rush-job placed near the end.

However, in Episode 11, it's clear that we've skipped a bit of time. We've worked our way not only through Summer and Autumn, but also through WINTER, as this episode is entitled: Winter Wrap-Up.

Now part of me finds it difficult to believe that there's such and abundance of snow on the ground when Fluttershy was picking flowers just an episode earlier, before Celestia's estimated arrival in Swarm of the Century. However, I am willing to accept that Applejack was in the process of storing her cart of Apples for the winter when they got devoured by the Parasprite swarm, and not hauling them off to market as it may have appeared.

Many times in Winter Wrap Up it's noted that Winter is now finally ending, and it's everypony's job to usher in Spring. Heck, we even sang a whole song about it! The song specifically mentions that it's been Winter for 3 months, everypony has been keeping their “hoovsies” warm at home, the food stored is running out and Rarity is tired of boots, EVEN THOUGH it's only been a week since Swarm of the Century aired where there were clearly no boots, nopony staying home, and no awesome holidays.

Either way, if we take this all into account, We've still got a pretty coherent timeline from the Summer Sun Celebration (Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2) through Winter Wrap Up (Season 1 Episode 11). BUT, things get INCREDIBLY awkward when we approach Episode 13 - Fall Weather Friends, where Rainbow Dash and Applejack race each other during the Running of the Leaves, and AUTUMN tradition! This bizarre timeline implies that shortly after cleaning up Winter, and bringing about the Spring season, Autumn AGAIN reared it's ugly head. It's evident that this isn't just a freak occurrence, since most of the trees in the back drops, as well as during the running, all have leaves that have changed to Fall colors. In fact, the entire town of Ponyville seems to be painted in red, yellow and brown hues. Pinkie even specifically states that without the Run, the Autumn leaves of Equestria would never Fall. This is in stark contrast to a mere two episodes ago, where Twilight mentions that Winter Wrap Up is the first day of Spring!

But what if Fall Weather Friends was meant to be aired before Winter Wrap Up?

This is actually the best explanation as to why the Equestrian seasons are such a clusterbuck, and the best way to explain this is to look at the air dates. When Friendship is Magic premiered in October, Summer in North America had already came and went and we were clearly in the middle of our Autumn season. However, a cartoon is not bound to our Earthly seasons and had no reason to reflect our weather here. Unless there was a clever marketing reason. Like say, a holiday season that compels friends and family to purchase an absurd amount of gifts for each other?

As we proceed on a week by week basis after the season went into full swing, there's something to be said for the sudden change of Ponyville's weather. Winter Wrap Up originally aired the day CHRISTMAS EVE, and may have been an attempt by the studio or the broadcast company to give viewers somewhat of a holiday or seasonal special. It wasn't until Season 2 that the writers delivered actual pony holidays like Hearth's Warming Eve and Hearts and Hooves day, which aired as close as possible to their respective holidays. Since entire seasons are usually written, filmed and shipped together, instead of being sent off episode by episode, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Winter Wrap Up wasn't intended to air for another couple of weeks. Though, unfortunately I can't offer a logical explanation for why the ground wouldn't be covered in snow during the events of Episode 12 – Call of the Cutie, or in literally any other Episode in Season 1.

The only thing that seems to conflict this theory is that in Winter Wrap Up, most of the trees in the background seem to still have all of their leaves, even when covered in snow. However, I'm going to chalk this up to laziness in animation, and a desire to merely recolor the background, instead of redraw the whole thing for seasonal accuracy.

Now, if we swap Fall Weather Friends and Winter Wrap Up on the timeline, we have possibly one of the best representations of a year on the Equestrian timeline, assuming that our years correspond to their years, and their seasons mark the passage of roughly a quarter of the year. Though I have to say that I do find it intriguing that Celestia sends out invitations to The Grand Galloping Gala shortly after the Summer Sun Celebration, but that we've effectively worn through at least 3 seasons before the Mane 6 actually attend! Even if we leave the airing order alone, and assume that Equestrian seasons occur in the order of Summer, Winter and then Autumn, this means that it's probably roughly Spring by the time Twilight and her friends actually get to go to the ball.

I think it's fair to assume that even though only 8 months passed in our world, the ponies completed the rough equivalent of a year. Some minor stumbling blocks were encountered, but lets take a look at how those were fixed.

~Season 2~
I feel that it's worth noting that the writers and broadcast company actually did a significantly better job at lining up episodes with North American holidays in Season 2. Luna Eclipsed aired roughly a week before Halloween, Hearth's Warming Eve was aired the week before Christmas Eve, and while we wouldn't receive a new episode MLP after that until the New Year, and Hearts and Hooves Day landed right on the weekend right before Valentine's Day. Season 2 performed much more admirably in it's display of the passage of time. However it's also the LAST time this mirror of seasons and holidays was attempted.

Moving forward through Seasons 3, 4 and 5, no further holidays were added, and none were revisited. Instead, we're treated to major events like The Equestria Games, and to a lesser extent, the Apple Family Reunion, and a second Grand Galloping Gala.

Wait... a second Grand Galloping Gala? When Twilight first receives the tickets in The Ticket Master, Rainbow Dash is quick to mention that the Wonderbolts perform at the Gala “every year”. For someone who's as big a fan of the Wonderbolts as Rainbow Dash, it's hard to believe she'd miss a Gala. In fact, with the Mane 6 being Celestia's right hand, it's hard to believe the girls wouldn't all be receiving invitations on the regular.

Now, it's quite possible that the Grand Galloping Gala had been stalled by a number of other events. There was that whole business about Discord, Shining Armor almost married a bug, but then didn't and married an Alicorn, who then became the Princess of the Crystal Empire that had vanished a thousand years ago that they had to go and save. Oh, and don't forget that part where Twilight became an Alicorn, and then later had to save all of Equestria from Tirek the evil Centaur-Demon.

However, I'd like to point out that during Make New Friends but Keep Discord, Fluttershy mentions that she met her new friend, Tree Hugger, on a trip to see the Breezies. You remember, the hideous butterfly creatures that serve absolutely no purpose what-so-ever in that obnoxious episode from Season 4?

This feels like a subtle nod to the fact that there are plenty of events occurring with the Mane 6 outside of what gets aired on the show. MLP isn't a reality series where cameras follow everypony through their every day lives. It's only natural that there are events that happen off camera. With this in mind, I think it's safe to assume that the girls have been to more than one Gala, and that the rest weren't televised. This idea that not every little bit of daily life shows up on the TV show is a great way to promote side-stories and character development through other media such as books and comics.

All in all, I think that the story-telling in Friendship is Magic has come a long way from it's humble beginnings, where seasons where sort of tossed wherever and whenever the writers felt like they could use it to make a point, to mimicking North American holidays, to just sort of being outright abandoned.

New Idea: Throw away everything I JUST said. On October 24th, 2015 we're getting a return to Hearth's Warming Eve. The following week, the morning of Halloween, we're getting another Nightmare Night episode.

This basically means one of two things: 1) I'm correct, and the season is being broadcast out of order AGAIN, for the sake of coinciding with a holiday, -OR- 2) Equestrian seasons really do occur in the order of Summer, Winter, Fall, Spring. Except this too isn't possible because Spring comes after Winter in Winter Wrap-Up and UUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH...

Who's right? YOU decide. Let me know how you feel about seasons and holidays in MLP and what your take on the airing order is.