Posted on 12/23/2013 5:39:15 PM PST by Faith Presses On
As I recall, retail stores started being open on Thanksgiving about a decade ago. The first ones to my knowledge were stores like Dollar General and Family Dollar. That was later followed by KMart, etc., and now most stores are open. These stores are now open on Easter, too, for some years. And last year, for the first time that I've noticed it, Dollar General (and probably others) is open on Christmas. So what do Christians think of this? I myself think it's terrible, and is another sign of where our country is headed.
I just hope they are open tomorrow.
Up to the employer, the employees and the customers. Practicing Catholic here but not everybody is. So I’m closed but I recognize that others may not be.
“Our Christmas dinner was hot dogs at 7-11. Ah, the memories! :D”
But those are the ones we remember-—where everything falls apart.
The reason I mentioned Chinese restaurants is because I have always lived in heavily Jewish areas and the movies and Chinese restaurants do very well on Christmas Day.
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I always try to remember that for many Christmas is a difficult day of separation, loneliness and depression. God bless them and lift their hearts.
There is an eruv where I live.
There always seem to be ways of skirting the stricter rules. (Not meant as a criticism,just an observation).
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they are private businesses and it is none of my business when they open/close. Zillions of people work on Christmas, firemen, police, prison personnel, street maintenance people, ( could snow you know) airport staff, air traffic controllers, pilots, cargo handlers, military(all of them), hospital staff, nursing home staff, state hospital staff, so who are we to be upset that retail merchants and their employees want to pick a few extra bucks....employees usually make double, or more, time so just leave them alone....they are not out ther alone in the wilderness.
I think one of the reasons or excuses for stores being open later hours and/or Sundays and/or holidays, more often, was the change to more single mom’s and single or not more mom’s working and more moms working full time, leaving fewer hours at least one parent was not working when stores were open. Families complained they could not get all their shopping done with the only parent, or both parents working full time.
How true that is I am, not sure.
oh, please...government interference in private enterprise is seldom, if ever, beneficial....
I guess it’s sad for them to have to work, but then it’s even sadder if they have no work.
If they can stay open on Sundays they can stay open on holidays. Not everyone in America is a Christian.
Boy do we know that.
True, Chinese and Jewish Christians are a relatively NEW phenomenon. My 'dog' reference was from 'A Christmas Story' movie -- they end up at a Chinese restaurant at the end since they probably follow Confucianism and are the only place open. It's the 1950's. There's a very un-PC scene by today's standards with the Chinese waiters singing 'Deck the Halls' and pronouncing the 'l's like 'r's. Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra... Cute movie.
What if you were Jewish. You could not go shopping on the sabbath. And the stores were closed on Sunday.
Kind of made the bread stale by Sunday night.
Ahhhh, it’s ok for the folks at the stadium to work?
Exodus 35:2 - Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.
I refuse to shop on those days.
That the stores are open on holy days is a another point indicating that America is no longer a Christian country. And just look at society now.
Depends...do they sell ammo?
I want at least one home depot or lowes to be open every 50 miles. Some of them can close, but plumbing emergencies are important to take care of.
The idea of Christmas as being a “national” holiday, a banking and business holiday when just about everyone gets a paid day off from work from their employer and when most if not all business are closed, rather than a merely a calendar and religious “feast day”, abeit an important one but not nearly as important as others like Easter, a day when there was a religious obligation to attend church (or Mass) and pray rather than a day to stay at home all day surrounded by all our family and friends, not to work and not to shop, is a rather recent phenomena, born primarily during the late Victorian era, a period of both romanticism and of a push for vast social reform.
In fact for many years, Christmas celebrations were banned outright and were illegal in England as it was deemed as being too “pagan” and not “religious” and it was the same in some of the American colonies like Massachusetts were Puritanism was strong and the ban on Chrismas was enforced.
Charles Dickens’ “A Chistmas Carol” was written during a time in the mid Victorian era when Ebenezer Scrooge would not have been at all unique in expecting his workers like his clerk Bob Cratchit to work on Christmas Day and feeling cheated for being pressured by changing customs and rather new socials norms into paying a man for not working, “a poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December”.
But if you read and pay close attention to “A Christmas Carol”, after Scrooge wakes up on Christmas Morning after having been visited by the Three Spirits of Charismas; Past, Present and Future, he looks out his window to see a young boy. He asks the boy if the big prized turkey is still hanging in the butcher’s window. To which the boy says “The one as big as me, yes”. Scrooge then tells the boy to go buy the turkey. “Go buy it and bring it back here I’ll give you a shilling, come back in five minutes and I’ll give you half a crown.”
Notice that he doesn’t ask the boy to rouse the butcher out of bed or to make the butcher open up his closed butcher shop just for him, but just to go buy the prized turkey and have it delivered to Bob Cratchit’s house, sort of indicating that the butcher shop was open for business on Christmas morning and making deliveries.
I remember my mother and father telling me that when they were young and working during the 30’ and 40’s, that a six day, 10 hour per day work week was the norm and that there was no such thing as paid over time or such a thing a minimum wage or paid holidays. The business might have been closed on Christmas Day, but if that day fell on a normal work day, they didn’t necessarily get paid for it unless their employer was particularly generous.
Your post covers about everything I was going to say.
The only thing I might add is that a lot of people don’t get paid if they don’t work. As you mentioned...not only is the loss of pay important, but oft times the holiday pay is very important.
No doubt being with loved ones is great on a holiday...but being able to pay the rent and keep the electricity on is even better.
Well first of all, not everybody is Christian, now that we have the Duh factor out of the way. Why does everything have to shut down? people still need to make money and people still need to buy things whether it is the Lords day or a Holiday. I used to manage Fast Food and when we used to be closed on Thanksgiving I had more than a fe employees who were upset at losing pay, also when I would go by to make sure all cash was handled correctly and the store locked up I had many people driving by that wanted to buy food. That is the reason places are open now, it’s market driven.
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