As a 10-year movie theater veteran in the Dallas area, I can tell you that Christmas day was definitely the busiest day of the year for us. Christmas Eve, however, was usually busy for the first set of evening shows (7 p.m.-ish), but business dropped off drastically for the last set (9 p.m.-ish).
Here’s my theory on why Christmas Day is so busy. By about 2 p.m. or so, everybody has opened gifts, eaten dinner, the kids have broken their new toys, and everyone is getting on each others’ nerves. So the movies are a perfect way to get out of the house, wear the new clothes you got as gifts, and not have to talk to anyone for a couple of hours.
BTW, I hated all you people who came to the movies on Christmas Day. Just once, I would like to have had Christmas dinner with my family instead of having to be at work at 10 a.m. Christmas morning to open the theater.
As for the OP, my guess is that this year Christmas Eve was busier because it fell on a Sunday. When it falls during the week, most people don’t have time to go to the movies after working all day.
Sdimbert, my dad grew up in Teaneck, and from what he tells me, its Jewish community was mainly Conservative. From your description, however, it seems as though the town is far more Orthodox nowadays. Is this indeed the case?
From where I sat, yes, Teaneck is a mostly Orthodox community. But I don’t really know for sure. I just know that there were 6 or 7 kosher eateries and 3 or 4 Orthodox shuls within 2 blocks of our apartment. I never really looked into any other flavor of Judaism.
As a Jew, I am familiar with Christmas day at the movies.
However, I’ve always had the experience of the crowd being overwhelmingly or completely Jewish. Before any one makes any assumptions, this judgement is based on people I recognise from synagogue, poeple speaking yidddish, etc. Until recently, the only places you could count on to be open Christmas day were movie theaters and Chinese restaurants. Stereotypical it may be, but I have personally seen the spectacle of a restaurant packed with Jews eating fried rice and discussing the films they’ve just seen.
I had always assumed that Christians went to church on Christmas. Sadly, many Jews go to services only on Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur. These are the two big holidays in Judaism. I assumed that many Christians(this is a statement on the state of religion in America today. I do not think Christians are more likely to lapse than any other faith and no specific insult towards Christianity is intended) went to church only on Christmas and Easter. I thought that the typical schedule went something like:
Kids wake everyone up early
Open presents
Go to church
Come home
Clean up wrapping paper
Spend rest of day enjoying presents and basking in
warmth of family
When I lived in Virginia, Easter was the day for going to Kings Dominion. There were virtually no lines. Again, the crowd was full of Jews.
Well, you have to keep in mind that a typical theater can seat about 200 people. Now, especially, the larger stadium style theaters that are being constructed, they can seat 300 or even 350 in one theater.
So, when the entire theater is filled to capacity, it is easy to assume that people are not spending time with their familes. However, when you keep things relative to the population of a given city, and populations of surrouding cities, 300 is minuscule when compared to populaces of 100,000.
So, of the combined, say 500,000 people within a given populace, you have to presume that at least 300 of them want to see a movie that night, being saturday night and all. Also, the hype that is attatched to this film adds a little to the mix.