The last few stat holidays have got me thinking that it is time to abandon the holiday concept altogether. In my neighbourhood more than 50% of the local shops are open on holidays and they choose other days to close. Closed for Chinese New Years but open New Years Day for example. While most places close on Christmas day, many shops just shorten their day for the holiday. It is often difficult to know what will be open and what will be closed on a given holiday with the exception of the bank which closes for everything. There is no sleeping in on a holiday morning because someone is doing construction. I f you do need to shop, you can bet it will be the one place that is closed. Have we moved beyond the point of needing fixed holidays? Should we instead allow employers to designate their stat holidays (so they can't not have them) to better suit themselves and their employees?
I've also noticed the trend of people ignoring holidays getting more common even in my own home town. The funny thing is you could find someone working on Christmas day complaining about how things have changed, how he misses the golden days of yore and so on. Why complain instead of taking action? As you suggest, I think employees should be permitted to choose designate their own holidays but even then the complications that could arise would make it impossible to accommodate everyone's wishes/demands.
I think a holiday is not a holiday when it's ruined by getting sick during that day because in that way, you wouldn't have excuse for being into bed, for not doing your work other than because you are sick which could happen any day. At least, if you don't want to celebrate the holiday, then you can just do something else, but being able to do so is because of the holiday. But if you are suffering a consequence not brought by it, then it's not a holiday at all though it is like when you're sick. You rest to bed, take a break because you're sick and not really because it's holiday.
I do not think New Years is a holiday, it's just a change in the calendar, I have never understood why one is expected to celebrate that. At my old job we all got Christmas day off, but worked all other holidays as usual days. Now I don't even get Christmas day off, I will be expected to work M-F every day of every week of the year. It's like Christmas is not going to happen for me anymore, which makes me really sad, but I still have Easter, which is actually more important to me, so that's OK I guess.
Honestly it makes sense for certain things to be open on holidays - some restaurants, and convenience stores, gas stations, etc. People are driving and need gas, or don't cook and need a setting for a family meal, etc. But I still feel bad for the people who have to work these shifts as they do not get to enjoy the holiday with their family and friends.
The answer to your question is really this simple: holidays are not holidays when it's only a day. Holiday simply is a contraction of the adjective "holy" and the noun "day," meaning a sacred day, but what is sacred to a man or woman is unto their own judgment. I well known celebration that is a holiday but spelled differently is "birthday."
I think there are at least two different things going on here. More, likely; but two that I can see. At least in the US. One, of course, is the fact that our holidays have been swallowed up by the world in the sense that they have become monumental money-making events. And two, when you have a melting pot of so many diverse peoples you get so many people celebrating so many different holidays that, yes, the world around us never really closes as there's always somebody open for business.
I've worked through many holidays in my life time. It's not fun, but you do what you have to do. Now, I still work through holidays, but I just don't get paid for it, lol. I was saying on another forum how there should be at least one holiday that doesn't center around a big meal. More cleaning, cooking, and cleaning up than a usual day isn't exactly a holiday for me. I really don't mind it as I enjoy having the family gathered around the table. I'm just not as young as I used to be, lol.
There are more and more shops keeping their businesses open during the holidays here as well. I think it's because people are beginning to embrace the commercial culture and are moving away from making things strictly about staying put and being with family. I think it's both a good thing and a bad thing since before spending time at home was pretty much your only choice whereas nowadays you could choose to go out and having that alternative certainly helps with the boredom and it's not like you can't take your whole family with you to go out anyway so in that way you could still stay together.
