If you got up on Sunday without an alarm and without trudging off to work in a coal mine, it’s because labor unions fought for your right to a weekend.

There will always be confident party-goers donning unforgivable sweaters pasted against the white shadows of winter. There will be carols that no amount of eggnog could auto-tune. There will be awkward mistletoe mix-ups, unsatisfactory secret Santas and discourteous family dinners. But the majority will celebrate Christmas the way it has always been celebrated in the United States—by buying a lot of stuff.