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About MARIAL MARIAL in the News
Dec. 25: A day like any other? By Marlon Manuel - Staff "We've done it for years," said Hrib, a 30-year-old stay-at-home mother of two in east Cobb who remembers seeing Disney hits and a re-release of "Grease" on Christmas Day. "I've done it since I was a little kid with my parents." Spending the day around the fireplace is fading like a Norman Rockwell print. The magic of the morning remains. But slowly, the rest of Christmas Day is becoming a day like any other. More stores are open. More people are working. Sunday has slipped away as a day of rest. Stores now open on Thanksgiving Day. Why not Christmas? Our culture's unprecedented mobility and 24/7 pace is shifting the perception of Christmas Day, said Bradd Shore, director of the Emory University Center for Myths and Ritual in American Life. "Our expectations of the specialness of Christmas have been pumped up by the extraordinary media and marketing hype that have grown up around the holiday," Shore said. "We can rarely match the intensity or purity of the advertiser's vision of our holidays." Got the itch to make the 7-10 split with your new Christmas bowling ball? U.S. Play in Kennesaw will be open from 4 p.m. Wednesday until business dies off sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight. The arcade and bowling alley first opened on Dec. 25 five years ago --- and it gets packed. They're not alone. Need a DVD rental for that new player or a game for your PlayStation 2? Blockbuster opens at noon. National drug store chains Walgreens and CVS have kept their 24-hour stores open Christmas day for years. One local Walgreens filled 400 prescriptions last Christmas. Norcross-based Waffle House opens its 1,300-plus stores 365 days a year. Fancier fare is available from hotel restaurants, like the Swissotel's Palm in Buckhead, which remain open for guests, and free-standing eateries like McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant in CNN Center and Iris in East Atlanta Village. Melanie Barnes will visit friends and family on Christmas. But in her 20 years in east Cobb, she has watched the number of places open on Christmas grow. "Material things have become important rather than sitting down and visiting and have a second piece of pie," Barnes, 50, said. Even among the faithful, Christmas Day is usually wide open. American churches concentrate their religious observances on Christmas Eve rather than Dec. 25. Many churches are closed on Christmas Day or offer few services in comparison to the day before. For example, St. Ann Catholic Church in Marietta has nine services today and three on Christmas Day. The Duluth First United Methodist Church has three services today and is closed Christmas Day. "It's cultural," said the Rev. Frank McNamee of St. Peter Chanel Catholic Church in Roswell. "A lot of folks celebrate Christmas Eve and set aside Christmas Day as a family day. In Europe, everybody would attend Christmas services on Christmas Day." Technology has fueled the demand for instant comforts, even during the holidays. Christmas Day creates a captive audience. Households are crammed with out-of-town guests or are bursting with children wired from the morning enthusiasm. It's time to get out. That's helped make Christmas one of the top movie days of the year. Four movies that debuted Christmas Day earned more than $90 million domestically during their entire run: The Sting ($156 million, 1973), Patch Adams ($135 million, 1998), Michael ($95 millon, 1996) and Stepmom ($91 million, 1998). Some studios find prestige in launching movies as "Opening Christmas Day." The top entry this Christmas: "Catch Me if You Can," a DreamWorks Pictures production starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. Christmas moviegoers tend to be "destination" driven, instead of "product" driven, said Rick Cross, spokesman for AMC Entertainment. They're content just getting to the theater --- not clamoring for the latest must-see. "It's a day when there's a lot of free time," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc., a California-based film industry research firm. Convenience stores rival theaters as a quick fix for people bent
on getting out. 7-Eleven, the nation's largest chain, reports Christmas
is its busiest day. Most stores --- Rich's and Macy's as well as discounters Target and Kmart --- still close Christmas. And if you're short on turkey fixings, don't bother heading to Kroger or Publix. Throughout the state, isolated stores may experiment with Christmas Day openings in an attempt to satisfy consumer demand, said Steve McWilliams, president of the Georgia Retail Association. It's not a trend as much as it is a tryout. "You're finding that consumers are no longer holding holidays
in the same light," McWilliams said. "It goes back to
when stores used to be closed on Sunday. Now people do not respect
Sunday anymore as a day of rest. It has become like any other day
of the week, and the same can be said of holidays." "Oh, we'd have business," Comi said. As for Walgreens, opening on Christmas Day has been "important to the success of the company" said corporate spokeswoman Carol Hively. "It's going to be pretty crazy, because we're the only thing in town," said Dan Haygood, manager of the Walgreens on Roswell and Piedmont roads in Marietta. "Christmas Day, without a doubt, is our busiest day." But convenience comes at a cost. According to the Bureau of National Affairs in Washington, D.C., more than two of every five employers now require workers to show up on Christmas or New Year's day. "Service is the name of the game," Haygood said. "I
wouldn't be surprised to see other retailers join us in the next
five or 10 years and open." < More MARIAL in the News |