My blog is open all day on Christmas.

Today is Christmas, the largest exercise in Groupthink in Western Civilization.

It's quite the holiday. Last night, the local news led with the story of hordes of Christmas Eve shoppers frantically pacing the stores for that perfect last-minute gift or (as one man was doing) his entire shopping list - including his wife. I hope she was watching.

This afternoon, I ventured out to a local multi-Plex to catch a film. I'm generally not too picky, and I decided to take pot luck with whatever was playing as I pulled up to the theater.

I've never been to a movie on Christmas, and as such, I had no idea it was such a secular pastime. The parking lot was almost full, and hundreds of families were forking over money to see the "Chipmonks", "Alien vs. Predator" or "Juno", which was sold out. I figured I was safe with my choice, "Charlie Wilson's War". Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, P.S. Hoffman and Mike Nichols. Hard to screw that up, right?

As hard as it is to believe, the 2:40 showing sold out while I was waiting in line for the families in front of me to sign the credit card receipts. It's just as well, since I'm not a fan of packed theaters. I figured all these people would be at home cooking their Christmas Beast, and the movies would be packed later. Since nothing else was playing besides kids movies and sci-fi destruction, I decided to bag the theater and went off in search of sustenance and write myself a note to buy my movie ticket online next time.

Good luck to me. The only businesses that were open were gasoline stations, a few convenience stores (hence the name) a couple of drug store chains and the standard Eat-out Xmas fare - the Chinese restaurant.

The big one around here is buffet style, and I was greeted at the door by a skinny Asian woman who apparently doesn't eat her own cooking. "Since it's Christmas," she said, "we're only serving dinner today."
"OK," I replied, and my inner voice was asking what the difference was between a buffet dinner and a buffet lunch. My outer voice remained silent. Isn't it the same food? It's not like there are lunch portions and dinner portions. It's a buffet. Of course, as soon as I heard the "Since it's Christmas" part, I figured that I was going to get screwed - in a bad way - by this deal.

Since it's Christmas, you'll have to eat while wearing these festive decorations. Since it's Christmas, we will be serving your dinner with a garnish of evergreens. Since it's Christmas, we can charge you whatever we want because you're desparate and we're the only game in the state.

So, no movie and a $14 lunch (since it's Christmas, dinner) got me to thinking. Christmas is the biggest holiday of the year, we can agree on that. It's also the holiday where practically everything is closed. Other holidays have "Holiday sales" so the retail stores are open or are centered around food, so restaurants are open. At Christmas, I suppose the stores figure they have squeezed the financial sponge to the point that there isn't any water left, so consumers are left to sit at home and contemplate their huge bills or use their remaining credit to buy four movie tickets. I think the technical term is, "Fuck 'em and run."

That's interesting to me, because Christmas is supposed to be a religious holiday, even though you and I know it isn't. Other secular holidays like Veteran's Day and July 4 are the sort of Retail-Optional Legal holidays that, to me, should be National Holidays. After all, they honor real things like people and country.

Days like today show you who is really in charge. Religion and the retail industry. They've convinced people that it's somehow "disrespectful" to be open on Christmas. You can't even hit a liquor store or a supermarket today. How many other holidays can you say that about? Even on Easter they're open a half-day. Wouldn't you figure that enough businesses would be owned by non-Christian types that there would be at least a few options?

I suppose the bigger end of the equation is that there aren't enough people like me who would welcome a few open doors, so they don't feel badly about having me drive around for two hours looking for food and entertainment.

It's nice to be reminded how much different I am.