Before I respond to the question I have to explain that, until I retired, I may have been on a day off for any of the federal holidays, but if my rotation made it so I worked on Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. As nice as it sounds for everyone to be able to celebrate these significant days ( even when we forget some of the reasons for their existence) I can't even imagine the reaction to an ATIS message that went:
"NOTAM all ATC services are unavailable today as it Easter/Christmas/Labour Day (etc) and your ATC staff are at home with the family. Normal service will resume tomorrow. Have a safe flight"
However, since ATC, and hospitals and police, among others, are deemed to be "essential services" we accept that not everyone gets the same deal. At least in the units I worked we made every effort to trade/juggle/schedule so that anyone with kids, or planning a family gathering could get at least the major part of the 'normal' day off. (Single guys often got New Years off to allow them the pleasure of enjoying their hangovers)
As far as the non-essential part of the world - and one retail day is pretty non-essential - yes, that's why the holidays are federally or locally mandated ... so that the 'average' person could be assured of having those days free to celebrate or rest. Most labour laws have the loophole that allows for a 'day in lieu' and/or overtime for working on the holiday and many owners took that a step further by threatening action against any employee who actually might want to enjoy the holiday. (Seem to remember a Charles Dickens story about a boss like that...)
Regarding the Thanksgiving/Black Friday debate, it's partly a curse of the US holiday calendar... Thanksgiving falls so conveniently about a month before Christmas that the (big) retail (corporate) owners saw it as perfect timing for a big sale to generate revenue well before the year end to make those books "black" instead of biting fingernails thru Christmas. Since Canadian Thanksgiving is in early October, the concept never took off - too early. We had our own perversion (Boxing Day Dec. 26th) but that's another story.
Should it be a shut-the-door holiday? yes, because most people don't give two hoots about workers' rights.
Is it too late to go back to the concept? Probably as the masses have been raised to believe that personal pleasure (in this case shopping and deals) is far more important than quality of someone else's life and the corporate bean counters don't care crap about any of the 'little people'
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