For many Americans, the winter holidays are marketed as a time of rest, glittering lights, and meaningful togetherness. Advertisements show families gathered around large tables, airports full of cheerful travelers, and streets glowing with decorations. Yet this serene picture hides a more complicated reality. While some people are packing their suitcases and planning elaborate meals, others are getting ready for another shift. They are stocking shelves, answering phones, driving delivery trucks, or preparing hospital rooms while the rest of the country counts down to midnight.
A few of these workers find small ways to escape mentally from the intensity of the season, perhaps by scrolling through social media, listening to music on a short break, or dipping into a quick distraction like wonderland online game before heading back to their duties. But for the most part, their holidays are not defined by leisure. Instead, they are shaped by schedules, expectations, and the relentless demand to keep services running for everyone else.
The Myth of the Universal Holiday
Culturally, the United States treats the winter holidays as if they belong to everyone equally. Schools close, many offices shut their doors, and popular culture reinforces the idea that December is a season of collective pause. In reality, this “pause” is unevenly distributed. The very consumer rituals that define the holidays—shopping, eating out, traveling, streaming entertainment—create a surge of demand for labor.
Retail workers manage extended hours and frantic crowds. Restaurant staff handle large parties and special menus, often late into the night. Transportation workers keep trains, planes, and highways moving. Those who maintain utilities, emergency services, and critical infrastructure stand by for storms, accidents, and sudden crises. The comforting illusion of a smooth, festive season rests on the invisible and ongoing work of people who rarely appear in holiday advertising.
Who Keeps Working When Others Clock Out?
The list of people who don’t get a winter break cuts across industries and income levels, though not evenly. Nurses, doctors, and hospital staff must be present around the clock, no matter the date on the calendar. Caregivers in nursing homes and assisted living facilities provide continuity for older adults who cannot simply be left on their own. Emergency responders handle everything from fires to icy-road collisions.
Then there are workers in logistics and delivery, whose busiest weeks often coincide with everyone else’s “time off.” They shoulder packages, drive long distances, and work unpredictable hours to meet the surge in online orders. Hospitality workers, including hotel staff and cleaners, accommodate tourists and visiting families. Even among knowledge workers, some in finance, tech support, and media keep working quietly behind the scenes, ensuring systems don’t falter during the peak holiday period.
What unites these very different roles is a simple fact: someone’s holiday often depends on someone else’s labor.
Financial Pressure and Unequal Choice
Not everyone working through the holidays is doing so purely out of duty. Many are motivated by financial necessity. In jobs with modest wages, holiday pay or extra hours can make a tangible difference in covering rent, groceries, or debt payments. Turning down a holiday shift may feel like turning down a rare chance to catch up financially.
Others have no real choice at all. Their contracts, schedules, or managers simply don’t permit extended time off in December. Workers who fear losing hours or future opportunities may accept holiday shifts even when they are emotionally or physically drained. The language of “choice” can be misleading here. Technically, a worker can say no, but the structure of their life—bills, family responsibilities, lack of savings—pushes them toward yes.
This uneven landscape means that winter breaks often reflect inequality. Those in higher-paying, salaried roles are more likely to enjoy long vacations and flexible schedules. Those in hourly, customer-facing, or essential roles are more likely to be working when everyone else is celebrating.
Emotional Costs of Working While Others Celebrate
The emotional experience of working through the holidays is complex. Some workers say they don’t mind; they take pride in keeping society running or appreciate the calmer streets and quieter commutes. For others, the season intensifies feelings of isolation. Social media fills with images of cozy gatherings and lavish meals, highlighting what they are missing. If their loved ones live far away, limited time off and tight budgets can make travel impossible, deepening the sense of being left out.
There is also the subtle stress of trying to maintain a cheerful demeanor for customers who expect holiday warmth. Retail and service workers often describe the strain of smiling through exhaustion, juggling demanding guests, or absorbing frustration from people who are themselves stressed by travel, family tensions, or financial worries. The pressure to perform kindness in an already emotional season can be quietly draining.
Coping Strategies and Small Rituals
Despite these pressures, many people who work through the holidays craft their own modest rituals. They might celebrate on a different day, arranging a late-night gift exchange or a small, improvised dinner after a long shift. Some families rotate traditions so that everyone gets at least a partial sense of celebration. Others create new customs entirely—like a shared breakfast before a night shift, or a simple walk under neighborhood lights.
For individuals, small sources of comfort matter. A favorite playlist, a warm drink on a short break, or a brief phone call with someone they trust can make the season feel less harsh. Some coworkers lean on one another, trading stories, jokes, and snacks to create a sense of camaraderie in the workplace. These gestures do not erase the structural realities, but they help people feel less alone in a season that loudly celebrates togetherness.
Policy, Culture, and What Could Change
The persistent reality of working through the holidays raises broader questions about labor, policy, and cultural priorities. If society truly values rest and connection, why are so many people required to sacrifice those things during the most symbolic weeks of the year? More robust labor protections, stronger unions, predictable scheduling laws, and fairer wages could help ensure that holiday work is compensated properly and, where possible, shared evenly.
Culturally, there is also room to expand recognition. Instead of assuming that “everyone” is off, institutions and individuals could acknowledge the workers who keep services running. Simple gestures—from public thanks to flexible scheduling or thoughtful bonuses—won’t solve everything, but they demonstrate that holiday labor is seen and valued rather than taken for granted.
Rethinking Gratitude and Visibility
Working through the holidays is not a rare exception; it is a normal part of modern economic life. The question is whether society chooses to ignore it or to incorporate it honestly into how it talks about the season. That includes recognizing that some people enjoy working those days, some endure it with quiet resilience, and others feel deep resentment or sadness.
A more honest conversation about winter holidays would hold two truths at once: the desire for rest, warmth, and connection, and the reality that these comforts are often made possible by someone else’s effort. Gratitude, in this sense, goes beyond polite words. It implies a willingness to support policies and practices that give more people a real chance at a break—if not on the exact calendar dates everyone celebrates, then at least in ways that feel meaningful and restorative.
For now, as lights twinkle and countdowns begin, countless Americans will be at work: answering calls, covering shifts, and keeping things running. Their stories are quieter than the festive music, but they define the season just as much as any holiday song.
