What about Super Bowl Sunday? 
Yeah, that would be nice, but that’s not the case for “everyone”. I’m an IT support analyst for a financial services company. If the stock market is open, we are open. Friday I work.
OK, OK, I get it that I screwed up about the day after Thanksgiving. You can all stop hammering it home now.
The day before Thanksgiving is the most heavily-traveled day in the year, mostly from people going to visit families. But that doesn’t mean that more people go home for Thanksgiving, just that they all do it at the same time. Most people travel for Christmas, too, but the range of dates over which people travel is more spread out. A Thanksgiving party is usually on the day itself, or at most the weekend immediately before or after, but a Christmas party can be any time in December or even early January.
That said, Thanksgiving might be regarded as more family-oriented than Christmas, if just because it doesn’t have all the other baggage that Christmas has. Thanksgiving is about family and food, whereas Christmas is about family, food, presents, Santa, Jesus, mistletoe, skiing, etc.
Depends on the family, really. For us, Christmas is basically Thanksgiving plus presents. Same people, same food, same games, and often the same conversations.
And hospitality! I work at a ski resort. We officially open for skiing tomorrow. My office (reservations) is open every day of the year, holidays included, though it’s usually pretty dead on those days. Almost everybody I know here is working tomorrow.
An awful lot of people work on days when “nobody works.”
Now I’m interested in what percentage of the working population works on Black Friday. I wonder if it approaches 50%.
If they didn’t no one would be able to enjoy that time off. There would be no where to go and nothing to do.
I mean, unless you *actually *want to spend that time at home with your family. shudder
Really? Because they won’t process deposits or payments until Monday.
(Apparently, the computers need to sleep through the cyber-tryptophan).
Approaches? If you don’t count people who specifically take the day off, I bet it’s over 70%. Aside from schools and some doctor’s offices, I can’t think of many places that are outright closed on Black Friday.
Agreed that your perception is off. Thanksgiving is pretty much just that one day and then everyone moves on. If part of the family is visiting a different part of the family, you normally don’t bother tracking everyone down. OTOH, Christmas usually involves multiple gatherings with multiple branches of the family and is spread out between Christmas Eve and New Year’s. It’s a logistical thing - you have presents for everyone so you need to see every single person face to face. On Thanksgiving, if you miss someone, you usually just roll with it.
Exactly. It’s not like I mind working it, it’s just that not everybody works a Monday-Friday office job yet have “real jobs.” Benefits and all. Please don’t forget about us. That’s all.
I have always thought it is dumb to have a ‘family’ holiday on a Thursday. How does it facilitate travelling to visit family when you have to work Wednesday and Friday. I work in the engineering field and see most people having to work Friday. Lots of people work on Friday - I would be really interested in knowing a true % of American jobs who actually get the day off. I’m sure most government jobs do.
So it is just some random day off mid-week where I eat a lot with local family. Talk about cheap crap to buy the next day (if I wasn’t working).
Christmas is a bigger deal to me. It is fun to watch kids open presents and play with new toys.
Only if you’re Christian. Which was sort of my point - if you aren’t Christian then Thanksgiving may well be the bigger holiday.
Of course, the US being a supposedly “Christian nation” :rolleyes: even those who aren’t Christian get it forcibly rammed down our throats. The rest of us sometimes forget we’re not supposed to exist, how uppity of us. Really, that is the one thing that has always annoyed me about Christmas, this blithe assumption that you MUST celebrate it even if you don’t believe in Jesus or the Judeo-Christian God. I am heartily sick of being forced to participate in gift exchanges, receive stacks of cards full of glurge about a deity I’ve never believed in, and listening to people whine that they can’t force ALL of us to listen Xmas Muzak 24/7 from October to December and they have to say "Happy Holidays" because, omigosh, not everyone believes in baby Jesus. Sure, sure, freedom of religion… as long as you believe in the majority relgion and just don’t talk about what YOUR family does. And if you do, you get shouted down.
No, my family does not and never has “gotten together for Christmas”. Christmas was a day off and maybe you go to the movies while all the Christians are in church or something. Yes, for many families it’s important but not for all of us.
It is my understanding that federal law prohibits U.S. banks from being closed four days in a row. Hence, the day after Thanksgiving is a working day for many bank employees.
I forgot to add, I’ve worked retail, retail is a real job. Not one I want to do ever again, though!
My Thanksgiving plans didn’t work out because of my work hours this year, but I don’t mind too much. My family, with the exception of one aunt (who was part of the plans that didn’t work), is hundreds or even a couple of thousand miles away. Christmas? Same thing, pretty much. I’ll probably be working that one, too. But that’s fine with me, really. And I understand your annoyance, Broomstick. It’s not like I’m Christian either. The timing is good for a holiday of some sort, though, what with winter being well underway but having a ways to go. Personally I go for Winter Solstice.
Besides, I don’t have any more vacation time to use until July. sigh
Well, you know, I’m a Yule person myself. And if I’m invited to a party or a home I will conform to local customs (Christmas, Channukah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan (it migrates around the calendar, I remember when it used to hit in November-December), Solstice, Haitian Voudoun celebration, whatever… I don’t mind people celebrating their holidays and I’m happy for them, it’s the insistence I must also get swept in their holidays that I find so grating.
What separates Thanksgiving from Christmas is football, not that roundy thing the rest of the world kicks all day without making a score either.
In my personal life it is more important to meet for Thanksgiving as a family holiday. Christmas is for the children and staying around home with them. But that is just me. Thanksgiving is an end of summer harvest festival to celebrate family and the bounty life give us. Many other cultures celebrate an end of year harvest festival too.
Christmas kicks off a week of end of year celebrations that end on New Years day. The whole commercialism of the gift giving thing is fading away for me, but I do like to see the children’s faces.
So Thanksgiving is the family holiday for me.
And I don’t wish to offend anyone with religious reasons for celebrating any of the seasons holidays.
There’s room for more at our house. Can you make it to Seattle by tomorrow morning?
I agree with the previous poster who said that Thanksgiving is probably the more universally and uniformly celebrated holiday, and in that regard is second only perhaps to Independence day in the national calendar. There isn’t any dispute about “how” you celebrate Thanksgiving - of course you have a special dinner meal with family or friends. The only religious content is so uncontroversial and generic (“be thankful for what you have”) that it fits with almost any belief system.
It is less of a “big deal” in the sense that it is not a gifting holiday and thus not very commercialized (there’s only just so many ways to sell turkey and pie).
Not arguing with you, really, Broomstick. I guess you just feel more strongly than I do about it. I do wish that when people mean Christmas and Christmas alone they would just say it. Don’t slap “Holiday” on a display of Santa cards, ya know? Just say it. I don’t mind. I don’t think anybody is going to get Santa cards for any other holiday. “Holidays” is fine; for me, that includes 'em all, though of course the Big Three being Thansgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
But that is another thread.
Thanksgiving is appealingly adaptable to pretty much anybody’s belief system or lack thereof. I like that about it.