I find this to be inherently contradictory: Most retail stores are closed on Christmas Day but open on Independence Day.

I have always felt that the 4th of July is America's most important holiday as it marks the birth of our country, yet most everything is open for business as usual.

I know the country was founded on freedom and that includes free trade aka capitalism, but I feel that there are days when we Americans should just stop consuming and remember why we have this enormous capacity to consume in the first place.

Like Christians saying, "there is no Christmas without Christ", there would be no Independence Day without the likes of our founding fathers. How is it that America's birthday has become just another opportunity for a BIG! SALES! EVENT! ?

Why are all of America's secular holidays (with the exception of Thanksgiving) just another excuse to sell sell sell buy buy buy?

I can't wrap my brain around this one. Any thoughts?

I think most of it has to do with the fact that we all try and do more and nobody ever really relaxes. I remember my great grandparents and grandparents would sit out on their front porch for hours a day and do absolutely nothing but watch the grass grow. Now when anyone has a day free their doing something. The busiest store in our area was Home Depot and Circuit City. People are just using their day off. Instead of sitting on the front porch people are building decks or installing new computers.

It's not ideal but I had to do some yard work and needed a few bags of potting soil so I went and picked some up. I don't think of it as shopping just doing things that I enjoy doing and need to get done.

I agree though that we should have one day where nothing is open. I vote Christmas.

Beyond the fact that by Christmas day most of us are completely shopped out, why should Christmas be the day that everything is closed?

Not everyone is celebrating Christmas. It might be nice for non-Christians to be able to go the grocery store or Home Depot on Christmas.

I just think that if everyihtng is going to stop for just one day in this country, it should be for a secular holiday that all American citizens can celebrate, not a religious holiday that is celebrated by only a part of the population.

how about 2 days then?

July 4th and Christmas?

One of the things that I enjoy most about Christmas is how quiet everything is in my town. The only thing that is open is the nearest Walgreens, and that is it. It's so peaceful.

That would be great. The trouble I have is not that everything is closed on Christmas, but that everything is open on the 4th of July.

I'd add Memorial Day to the list of days that everything should be closed.

Sometimes I like to go to the mall on my days off.

I've always felt that Election Day should be a national holiday.

Why it isn't is a mystery to me.

it's the nature of how each holiday is celebrated, due in part to the fact that thanksgiving & christmas are winter holidays that therefore lend themselves to more formal modes of celebration (vs. cookouts) and probably also due to the fact that, compared to christmas, july fourth (and i think memorial day) are pretty young.
Christmas, in theory, goes back to god knows when (literally, heh...we'll put aside any discussion of how Christmas as we know it is a pagan amalgamation blah blah blah) and even Thanksgiving presumably goes back to the 15 or 1600s. The fourth of July is just over 200 years old, so it's less steeped in tradition (esp. "formal" tradition) than the other two.
finally, for a cold-weather holiday, it's more natural to put on your nice christmas sweater and spend the day gorging on food and then laying around in front of the fireplace with your family (though plenty of families, mine included, go see movies on both christmas and thanksgiving). For the fourth, you're not gonna have a big shindig where you sit around the grand dining room table and carve up a turkey - you have a barbecue where people bring a salad and maybe drop by for a couple hours. But because of this informality, it's not too far of a leap to go from that to "hey mom, let's go shopping".
If the founding fathers had declared independence on january 4th, i'm sure things would be a bit different.

Not a bad idea. Would probably get a bigger turnout seeing how work would not get in the way of getting to the polls.

Where do I sign?

good points...but I think july 4 could be almost as steeped in tradition and family gatherings if there were no other options on that day. the options being shopping and life as usual.

and I agree about election day. there would be a bigger turnout. maybe election day should take place on july 4 instead of in november?

We need more days where everything just shuts down.

right, but the point is that it's in the middle of summer (well, the summer climate months) and as such even back in the 1800s, prior to the rise of the insidious dollar, there were more "options" just because of the weather.
and i would say july 4 is steeped in tradition, they're just, again, less formal - gathering for fireworks, people putting american flags on their porches for one of the 3 or 4 days a year that's "cool", watching the white trash neighbors light their yard on fire and rain bottle rocket sticks into your driveway, etc.

we have election day in Uruguay as a national holiday and it works really fine

Since when is spending bad?? In this country at least it keeps people employed and the economy rising. I'm sure George and Martha Washington went down to the market every July 4th and bought little piggies to fire up on the barbeque.

I say scrap Columbus Day and move the extra holiday to Election Day.

Though, I doubt voter turnout would be significantly higher.

right, 'cuz i don't think most registered voters get columbus day off anyway

not everyone celebrates the fourth of july, either. i'm sure there are plenty of immigrants that do not celebrate the fourth of july. i'm sure there are a lot of people here with student visas that do not celebrate the fourth of july.

but truthfully, i don't understand why you're letting it bother you. let people celebrate, or not celebrate the day however they see fit. go boating. go see a movie. catch up on your yard work. have a drunken party. go shopping. whatever. just enjoy your day off.

if you don't like the fact that the stores are open, don't go. but don't stop me from going because i've got the day off.