I remember not being able to buy gardening supplies like gloves, garden hoses, and screws and such on Sundays.
Of course even now you can't purchase hard liquor on Sundays in some places.

Not that I would need to I have enough to last me through a couple of lifetimes, a bottle of about everything.

I'm not aware of any "blue laws" on Thanksgiving.

Several grocery stores have told me they plan to shut down around 2 pm on Thanksgiving, which surprised me because in larger cities where I used to live stores were open 24-7 with the exception of closing at 6 pm on Christmas Eve and all day Christmas.

You snooze, you lose.

Other holidays, no problem, but those two I leave alone. Shoot, the movie I have been dying to see (for months!) is coming out Christmas Day and I won't go see it. Day after, sure. Whatever we need can wait one day, can't it?

Can't think of anything worse than shopping on Thanksgiving or Christmas or the eves of either. As the perky cashier in a credit card commercial says, "Have a super sparkly day."

I have never gone shopping on Black Friday and hope to never have to. My daughter and her high school friends all go into NYC on that Friday. Now that is crazy, but they love it.

the movie I have been dying to see (for months!) is coming out Christmas Day and I won't go see it. Day after, sure. Whatever we need can wait one day, can't it?

What if you don't celebrate Christmas? Going to the movies and out to a Chinese Restaurant is what I have always done on Christmas day.

How about this for you? Some people volunteer to work it since they don't celebrate and they get paid extra/better. You're keeping them paid.

See? Works for everyone.

:)

Live better... unless you work here. In which case, holidays only exist for *some* people who work here. Poor people don't need or deserve them. They wouldn't appreciate it anyway and would probably just use the time to fill out their food stamp application.

Nobody is complaining about police officers, ICU nurses, TSA agents, or the myriad of other job titles having to work that day...

Applying for a job in in retail, one knows up front that the store does business on holidays.

If people want to shop, of course a business will want to earn the profits they can, technically good for everyone.

You can look at many layers of this onion.

As purple said, there are lots of jobs where you don't get to take off just because it's a holiday...

Due to inflation, worker debt and a tough economy, we generally get more volunteers than we need, plus many want the overtime, doubletime and other perks.

Many "want" to work more hours, different hours or on-call hours but can't due to child care, transportation and timing issues.

Really, can't we take one day in this country to appreciate something besides our effing affluence? Thanksgiving should be about more than being thankful you got a $100 laptop, or had room on your VISA to do it.

Things like this remind me of Jimmy Carter's speech years ago about how we are starting to care more about how much we have rather than who we are.

How that connects to Blue Laws ... not a clue. But fwiw, Blue Laws suck too.

Anyway, despite the tone of the post, have a lot I am grateful for today, and wish all the best!

Hear! Hear! I couldn't agree more. People are lined up in tents at this very moment at Best Buy and that's where they plan to spend their Thanksgiving Day.

The thought of spending hours outside a big-box store waiting to take part in the 'Running of the Shoppers' - America's answer to Paloma and their idiot tourists that run in front of bulls - to get some $300 flat screen TV marked down to $150 that was mass-produced by over-worked, resentful, furious Chinese child labor, sold to you by minimum-wage clerks who really want to be home sleeping but need the hours to feed their children something other than potato chips.

/is it too early to start saying 'Bah Humbug'?
//Can I move that up, since the stores are?

I do, however, do a bit of shopping (but only for myself) on Small Business Saturday. Farmers market for greens to make swags, then across the bridge to Wisconsin to see what the vendors in the old Soo Line Railroad station have - usually hand crafted chocolates and unusual ornaments. I have tons of ornaments, but like to add a couple of the Scandinavian straw and wooden ones.

>I remember when stores closed at 5 OClock and that included grocery stores. Friday night they were open till 9 and I think maybe some nights before Xmas. New Jersey's blue laws were in effect when we used to go to Ocean City and my kids would complain on Sundays when the whole boardwalk was closed.

I guess that's more important than sending her to school. Or perhaps the schools were closed Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the USA? No matter, as long as she gets that new iphone or Wii or whatever, right?

>I remember when stores closed at 5 OClock and that included grocery stores.

Oooh, I think that's just a bit too much for most people these days. When all the moms were SAHM's it might have been different but moms these days don't even get off work until 5:00. Grocery shopping after work is the norm.

I hear ya.

Twister, a doll, and a stocking of candies... the Christmas of yesteryear.

Today it's a new laptop, an iphone, the latest video game system (complete with 6 or 7 games), a gift certificate to their favourite clothing store for a few hundred dollars, a couple hundred dollars cash... and that's the elementary school aged kids.

Tobr, I'm not going to have a hissy fit over an "incorrect statement in the OP intended to outrage", but there are others with a history of this, so be afraid...

On a recent trip I was dismayed to notice that most the people in the boarding waiting area at the airport were plugged into machines insead of talking ro each other. It creeped me out. I would not be comfortable at a family event with that ambiance; in fact, I wouldn't allow it. Leave your machine at my door.

I know up here it's blamed on Maine's Blue Laws that they can't open on Thanksgiving.

If it weren't for them, the little children in our family, it would only be a gathering of thankful adults, sans commercialism, consumerism, and materialism. And since children are often thankful and happy regardless of the digits on a price tag, because it's not the expensive gift they want, but simply to have you there to share in the joy and wonder of it all... shopping for us is fairly simple.

But I won't fight crowds to do it, or camp in front of a store... we're way less worried about gifts than we are being able to make the trip and and share that time with our family. This year, we've been slowly picking up things as we see them, and we think the grandkids might enjoy them. We're about done with the gift thing.

*

Oh, that's sad to me!

I enjoy the holidays for many reasons, changing somewhat as life goes along, but the "magic and wonder" is still there for me! From the anticipation, the preparations, family coming home after long absences, the poignant memories--distant and recent--and the giving and charity and forgiveness to one another that we are reminded to live.

I don't have any grandchildren, my daughters are not married and we enjoy the holidays immensely--magic still exists (yes, Santa Clause still comes no matter the age of anyone sleeping here Christmas Eve) and will until I can no longer do it or pay someone to do it. The wonder is there every day if we consider it, not just the holidays.

Jodi's said that before; and that's fine--for her.

Demi said: "From the anticipation, the preparations, family coming home after long absences, the poignant memories--distant and recent--and the giving and charity and forgiveness to one another that we are reminded to live."

I feel this way, too. I think this comes from having faith, which means different things to different people.

She's moved up the ladder much faster than others partly because she accepts the shifts, days and hours others turn down.

By opening longer on Thanksgiving day, it had a load balancing effect, so store traffic was fairly equally divide between the two days which made store traffic more manageable.

Stores that didn't open, or had limited hours Thanksgiving day lost a lot of business as many brick and mortar shoppers have limited cash and credit which was used up at other stores.

You snooze, you lose.

We all have numerous volunteers willing to take our place.

Many of our employees actually enjoy getting away from their nagging, complaining, unappreciative and annoying wives, girlfriends, kids, step-kids etc.

Many see their relatives year-round, so Thanksgiving is just another day to get together with relatives who spend much of their time texting, playing games and surfing the web on their cell phones.