I’m in NYC and I’ve heard/read it , but like I said earlier, it’s not common. I mostly read it in the context of which holidays banks are closed for - for example, a list of holidays observed by a specific consumer bank or a Federal Reserve bank , or a business that describes their holiday closings as “we close on bank holidays”. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I live in NYC and I expect in other places use of the phrase might be limited to those in the financial sector.
Well played Thudlow_Boink, but no, it can’t both be secular and non-secular at the same time. The US can be primarily secular, and compared to Iran that’s clearly the case, but if your country is secular you have to keep religion completely out of government, without any caveats or exceptions. The US isn’t truly secular, it never was, and it never will be.
Some devote Christians take Christmas very seriously, most Christians don’t, which I think says something about where organized religion is headed… but that’s a different debate for a different thread.
We had a lengthy and contentious thread claiming exact this and puzzlegal explicitly linked to it.
Many people in this thread took part in the other one, including you. I’m sure it’s in the background of thought here.
I only know the term because I read a lot of British stuff. I don’t think it’s in wide use in the US. And it’s not a phrase I’ve ever used when discussing US holidays. I’m curious where you are that you know lots of people who use the term.
Sure it can. IMO it’s far more religious than secular, especially in its origin, but even I admit it has aspects of both.
I recall it being more common before ATMs became ubiquitous (like before 1980), when people actually needed to know when banks were open. Now I only hear used as an afterthought. Like in “Monday is a holiday, no mail and banks are closed” . . . meh.
Amazon Primordial.
To answer you and thorny_locust, I was born and raised in SoCal and currently live in FL. I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that “everyone” said it, but I’ve definitely heard at different times pretty much as long as I can recall (not that I ever took note of it; I guess that’s the point;I’ve always heard / said it so it’s just normal to me). It was mentioned that perhaps folks in the financial industry use it more, so I might hear it more know than in years past.
Thanks, Exapno_Mancase. I missed that post. I’ve said all I’m going to say at this point on the subject.
While it’s a celebration, it’s not a public holiday there. Children get small presents from Santa, but they will be getting otoshidama cash on New Year’s so they don’t get expensive presents. On Christmas Eve, families will eat “Christmas Cake” a sponge cake, frosted with whipped cream, often decorated with strawberries, and usually topped with Christmas chocolates or other seasonal fruits, and a Christmas theme decoration. Christmas cakes not sold by the 24th were left-overs and the ancient sexist joke was that women not married at 25 were Christmas cakes.
For the romantic crowd, it’s actually bigger than Valentine’s Day, having roots in early 90s romantic Christmas TV dramas, for reasons which go beyond even this hijack.
Other than couples, adults don’t generally give gifts to each other.
But I’m rambling and the point was while they do celebrate it in their own quirky way, it’s not a public holiday. The OP is differentiating between federal holidays, (paid holidays where many things close) and celebrations such as Easter which are not holidays.