Recently, I read an observation that Americans tend to take off the 25th, maybe a day before or after, and then it's right back to work. That tracks with my experience. But then he says it's different in the UK.
This was from a column in the Irish Times about two years ago:
In America, the Christmas holiday is what it says: a holiday to observe Christmas. If it happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday, tough. See you at work Monday morning. But across the Atlantic, if Christmas and New Year fall on the weekend, the ensuing weeks are eaten up by so many holidays they can’t even come up with names for them. I see from the well-named “Beautiful Ireland” calendar this newspaper sent me that January 3rd 2005 is a holiday in Ireland and Britain – the Morning After The Morning After Hogmanay – and the lucky Scots get January 4th off too – the First Hogtuesday After Hogmonday?
And I can't help wonder -- how much of that is true, and how much is, well, blarney?
So my question is, I guess -- how long of a holiday do people in your area generally get?
In my experience, grade-school kids get a little over a week (Dec 22nd to Jan 1st, this year) and when I was in college we had a month between semesters. But most businesses I know of are open the week between Christmas and New Year's. This year, we put our kids into all-day childcare at the YMCA so Mom & Dad could work. So did a lot of other parents, judging from the existence of the program! If you've got a week or two of vacation time you can take that week off, but it's generally not automatic.
What's it like in your neck of the woods?
PJ
