Sunday Shopping

Growing up in Idaho there was not a lot of opportunity to do a lot of activities on Sunday. Most places are closed or have shorter hours for the day. Even in the small communities however there were still places open. Target, Walmart and the mall are open on Sunday as well as most of the restaurant chains. The smaller locally owned businesses were closed but other than that you could eat anywhere you wanted. With that said it was on a very rare occasion that we did much shopping or eating out on Sunday. The shopping was only done for emergencies like medicine. I can count the number of times I've eaten out on a Sunday in Idaho on one hand. It's not because we couldn't but because we were choosing not to. I didn't plan on changing those practices when we made the move to NJ a month ago but circumstances have changed our plans a bit.
Sunday is Jeff's only day off which means Sunday is the only day I have a car to get groceries or anything else like that. I know what the recommendations will be. Go before he leaves or when he gets home. Those are GREAT ideas! but a no go. You see he leaves at 9 am. That means I would have to have my two kids and I out the door by 6:30 to get to a grocery store by 7 and that would give us an hour to an hour and a half to get the shopping done and be back home for Jeff to leave. While that does sound like a great time I'm not sure it's physically possible. I'm pretty sure myself or my children would not survive the trip. Since he doesn't get home until midnight that's not an option either. Plus I stay up until he gets home so waking up to be out by 6:30 would be impossible for me.
So the first Sunday we were here we decided to run to Target to grab a few things that we didn't bring and we needed. We pull into the parking lot and it is completely empty. Wow, Target is closed on Sunday. I made some comment about did we move to Provo and I just thought we were in NJ. (HA!) So we go look for a few more places, closed, closed, closed. Even the malls here are closed on Sunday. No shorter hours they just do not open. I never thought we would have a harder time here than in the west trying to find a place open on Sunday. I decided to Google why the stores are closed on Sunday here and this is what I found.

Many stores in the United States have reduced hours of operation on Sundays (most often 11 a.m. or noon to 5 or 6 p.m.), although the recent trend has led to expansion. A few local municipalities still prohibit Sunday shopping, and many others prohibit it until a certain time (most often noon or 1 p.m.), especially in regard to selling alcohol.

One of the last major areas to completely prohibit Sunday shopping is Bergen County, New Jersey.^[21] This area contains one of the largest and most popular commercial shopping cores of the New York metropolitan area (for example, one of three local Ikea stores is found here, the store is the only one in the United States to be closed on Sunday). Ironically, the area is not considered to be particularly religious compared to the U.S. population at large; and it also has significant Jewish and Muslim populations whose observant members would not be celebrating the Sabbath on Sunday. But attempts to repeal the law have failed as many locals either like to keep the law on the books as a protest against the growing trend of increased Sunday shopping activity in American society or fear the potential increase of Sunday traffic on major local roads such as Rt. 4 or Rt. 17. Some local Orthodox Jews who are off both days of the weekend have complained about the law because it limits their ability to get shopping done on the weekend without having to travel to a neighboring county as religious beliefs prohibit shopping on Friday night or on Saturday before sunset, which in the summer can be right before most department stores and malls close.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_shopping

So there you go. We have moved to the only place in the United States that requires every store be closed on Sunday. Any thought of shopping on Sunday has been taken care of for me unless we decide to drive somewhere else. Our Sunday drives are quite entertaining to say the least. Any thoughts from my readers on stores being closed on Sunday and it making it harder or easier to get things done. And if you were me living in a completely different world for the summer would you take advantage of your husbands day off and see the sites or would you go to church and have a family day at home? I am torn with both. I will NEVER be here for this time frame again. There are so many things to see and do and so many things I want my children to experience while we are here. Unfortunately that means those experiences are on Sunday. But at the same time we are together as a family and learning about our great country so it's not all bad right.