How do I start a petition, or submit a formal request, and where do I send it?

Nope. I have missed many Christmases in my time and I can sympathize with the trials and tribulations of that time of year. But I have also had to listen to so many people bash me because I’m a Christian. So giving those people 3 days off to celebrate a holiday they think is based on myth is foolishness. Not to mention there are many, many delivery people in this country that have to work double hard both before and after the holiday to make up for that one day off. It almost doesn’t make it worth getting one day off, much less 3 (since they would have to work triple hard).

At my job, we had no rule about taking time off the day before or after a holiday.

A person would have a better chance of trying to get their employer to change the rules at the workplace, around things like taking time off around a holiday, than to get Congress to grant a three day federal holiday for Christmas.

The other pushback that is likely to occur is that other religions are going to want time off for their holiday. In our neighboring school district (not ours, but the next town over), they are now having no school for Diwali. Muslims will say “what about us?” and it will be a legitimate concern.

I know when I was working, the holiday season was very stressful. Trying to shop after work, trying to take time off work to attend school events (with a 40 mile commute to and from work, going 40 miles to my daughter’s school for a mid day gingerbread making party, and then debating whether to go 40 miles back to work or take the whole rest of the day off and losing vacation time for that), all so stressful. Then, being exhausted and just wanting to rest, and having to attend work events and personal events, and finding time to wrap presents when my daughter was sleeping, it was all so tiring, so I get it, but 3 days federal holiday is not likely to occur any time soon.

I’m satisfied with my PTO/holidays. We got more time off at Thanksgiving so it works out.
We dont get OT pay on weeks with holidays I believe.

When I worked in local government, we got a month vacation, 5 days personal, 13 holidays (which started as 12 but then they gave us Juneteenth), and 12 sick days. When you add it all up, it’s over 2½ months off, per year with pay. They wouldn’t be likely to add another two days to that without taking something away.

I should add that it started with two weeks vacation, plus the 5 days PT, plus the 13 holidays, plus the 12 ST, but as you stay for year after year, you get more Annual Time (aka vacation) time off. Even two weeks plus the 5 plus 13 plus 12 was quite generous.

We had rules in retail about working your schedule to get the paid holiday.

A lot of people celebrate Christmas the eve of the 24th, so that’s difficult when most companies expect people to work on the 24th.

I think Canada and Europe get Boxing Day off, the 26th.

Plenty of people work on Christmas. Disney (close to where I live) is open. All the hotels, restaurants, rides, performers, ride engineers, plus you have hospitals running, and toll plaza people, pilots, flight attendants.

I do think it would be nice to have a longer holiday though. It just depends on the type of work.

When my husband worked for a Canadian company, it shut down Christmas through New Years. Everyone took that week off except for essential services that can’t completely stop.

The economy is part of the reason the government and corporations won’t want the whole country not working for three days. They already changed Thanksgiving to a week earlier to add another shopping week for Christmas. I don’t remember what year the change happened, it’s over 60 years ago, it happened before I was born.

@Jleslie i never knew that about the date, but i just googled it and it’s true.

@jca2 Thanksgiving?

Other religions don’t complain about having Christmas off, do they @jca2? Do immigrants complain about getting getting off or being paid extra for 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day and all other American holidays?
And of course someone has to work over the holidays, but everyone, regardless of their religion or original nationality, get extra pay for that one day, (not for the whole week @KNOWITALL)

I’m not talking about YOUR job.
I worked for Boeing. We got 10 paid days off over Christmas.
When I was teaching we got all the same days off that the kids had, paid.
Rubbermaid was one of those companies that docked your pay if you took the day off before or after a holiday, no matter how much sick leave or PTO you had saved
I’m talking about the average workers with kids. Of course you’re happy with your time off @KNOWITALL. But you don’t represent the majority.
Think of others. Think of the single parents!
Give them an extra day! Or 2!

@JLeslie Yes, Thanksgiving.

@Dutchess_III I don’t understand your point. My point is that other religions may say if we get off for Christmas, they should get given the day with pay for Diwali and other religious holidays from other religions.

But we DO get Christmas off @jca2! Its been a federal holiday since 1885. We just don’t get the days on either side of it off.

The schools actually faced that problem already, hence it’s now know as “Winter Break” instead of Christmas break.

It’s arguable that Christmas should not be a federal holiday and simply a holiday that businesses give the day off, but I guess for federal workers to have Christmas count as a paid holiday it has to be called that. Christmas is not a National holiday, which makes sense.

@Dutchess_III Schools do always give Christmas off and not necessarily the day off for other religious holidays. Not a scheduled day off in the school calendar anyway. It’s mostly based on the student body and how many students are affected.

When I went to Michigan State University they sometimes had enrollment start on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, and the holiday has rules not to work or touch money and enrollment involved work and payment. It was really pretty crappy for them to be so unaware of the most important day of the Jewish calendar. Generally, I am not offended by things like supermarkets putting out Jewish items for Passover that are not related to Passover and I don’t expect every community in the US to have a menorah next the nativity scene, we are a small group and almost nonexistent in some corners of the country.

ANYWAY, where would I start to look into reaching the government? The governor? Congress person?

Yes, you could start by writing to you Congress person and governor. Look them up online to get their addresses.

Go for it, maybe it will get traction.

In the meantime, a solution could be people could stop busting their butts so much and spending so much money on gifts. It will hurt the economy a little, and might panic the stock market a little, but it would be nice not to have Christmas so focused on spending and more about being together and the birth of Jesus for those who are religious. There will still be a lot of spending on travel.

My MIL makes way too much food for Christmas, and we don’t eat half of it, I don’t even like half of it, but I usually like her food otherwise. She cooked for about 5 hours on Christmas Eve morning-afternoon and had cooked two days before a dish also and she only provided about ¾ of the food.

I told friends a few years ago that I wanted to stop exchanging gifts for Christmas. A few were resistant to my request (I think I posted about it here on FL) but I insisted. It takes a lot of pressure off now to only have to buy for my daughter and a few close family members, and exchanging with those family members is kind of optional, too. I used to have to buy for coworkers, too, when I was working, so it was literally making a list and checking it twice to make sure I had appropriate things for friends and coworkers, and now it’s down to very few people and it’s great.

Less buying, less stress, less expectations, less consumerism.

@jca2 Work gifts are a ridiculous added pressure. Did they have a limit at work, like not more than $25 per gift?

@JLeslie No, there were no guidelines as it was all totally optional and up to each person. I would try to keep it to about 25 to 30 dollars each.

That too! It’s gotten beyond absurd, but to the benefit of the economy.
But that aside, there are folks who give their all, all they have, just to make the kids happy, even if they have almost nothing.
It’s hard and it’s stressful.

Oh yeah, I totally get it, when it comes to kids, they expect it and they should get it.

Well my kids each got a box of junk cereal (which I NEVER got otherwise) wrapped under the tree! Food out the ears is all we did have! And they got small, thoughtful things too, even when it was hard to find. But yeah. I worried about it.
But we just needed another minute, you know?