Christmas TV is regarded as particularly terrible I think. People are generally fairly comatose after their lunch and families are probably happier playing games and eating and drinking unwisely.

The Christmas ghost story is another tradition, as is The Wizard if Oz, Casablanca, James Bond and Charles Dickens movies and series.

Mercifully for the English the shops reopen on 26th and there is football and other holiday activities in normal years.

Do folk in the USA take much time off work? In the UK and Ireland people seem to take 10 days to a fortnight off (not health care, emergency or retail workers).