Hearne: When Did Christmas Eve Become Such A Big Deal?

Am I missing something?

Apparently. Because out of the clear blue sky, I woke up recently to the realization that Christmas Eve had far and away overtaken holidays like Halloween, Valentine’s and Deep Dish Pizza Day to become almost as an important as Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Unofficially, anyway.

For example, all of my car biz connections, Aristocrat in KC, BMW VW in Topeka and Volkswagen and Honda in Lawrence were missing in action last Tuesday on Christmas Eve.

Downtown Lawrence – a charming collection of cool and diverse retailers – was nearly a ghost town. Everywhere I turned I saw signs on business fronts that said – not that they’d be closing early that day – but were throwing in the complete towel and would be closed all day.

In my younger years, when I was a stock and commodities broker on the Plaza, there were holidays I did half my Christmas shopping – or more – dashing around at the last minute on Christmas Eve.

This was before Amazon and what we used to call the Worldwide Web.

And lest there be any doubt, I’m a no stranger to midnight masses.

I remember – and not faintly – making holiday car deals on Dec. 24th.

Uh, no mas…

So what’s the deal?

In case you missed it – as I did – you can blame it on senile president Joe Biden.

A check with my pal Google – posing the question of when the 24th became a no-work holiday, I got the following:

“President Joe Biden signed an executive order making Christmas Eve a federal holiday in 2024.”

So not only is the lame duck prez running around half out of it and pardoning the worst people imaginable, he’s elevated Christmas Eve.

Who knew?

Not Westport kingpin Bill Nigro.

“If I had known that, I would have taken Christmas Eve off,” Nigro shrugs.