Important Note: Texas Bans Liquor Sales On Christmas, New Year's

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Drop what you're doing, as this is important: Texans cannot buy liquor on Christmas or New Year's Day because of lingering laws dating to Prohibition, so you might want to stock up before then.

After Prohibition was repealed, Texas lawmakers seeking to control the consumption of alcohol passed what's known today as the "Sunday Blue Law," banning the sale of liquor on Sunday. That's the Lord's day, after all, lawmakers reasoned and no spirits will be sold on that holy day. In another nod to Christian values, lawmakers added Christmas Day to the ban in 1967. And by 1979 , Thanksgiving Day and New Year's Day were added for good measure.

In the event Christmas or New Year's Day fall on a Sunday (not applicable this year as both fall on a Tuesday this time around), liquor sales are also banned the following Monday.

Texas isn't alone in this, mind you. Roughly half the country bans liquor sales on Christmas Day as well.

Nancy Beck Young, a history professor at the University of Houston, told the Dallas Morning News other factors went into the Christmas Day ban on liquor sales. The civil rights movement and anti-war protests had pushed the country into social turmoil, she noted, imbuing many lawmakers with the sense that society was heading down the wrong moral path.

In an attempt to repair a moral fabric fiber they perceived as increasingly fraying, lawmakers stitched together the Christmas Day ban as a nod to Christian values: "Keeping Christmas for Christmas, being faithful to religious teachings, following scriptural edicts, all of that,” she told the newspaper.

But surprisingly, the addition of the Thanksgiving Day and New Year's Day bans were borne not from lawmakers' moral indignation, but at the request of Texas Package Store Association members who asked for those days to be added as well, as the Houston Post reported in 1979.

"We polled our members across the state asking which three of five holidays they would like to be closed, and they chose these three," one of the association's directors, Spec Jackson, told the Post at the time. "We did it for the benefit of our employees. Few businesses are open Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, and most people would like to be home with their families."

The Dallas Morning News added another bit of more Texas liquor ban history. When lawmakers last tried to change the rules in 2013 — an effort led by Rep. Senfronia Thompson who tried to pass legislation that would allow liquor stores to open on Sundays and lift the Monday-after-Christmas-or-New-Year's bans — it was the merchants who pushed back.

“We don’t support being open on Sundays,” the group's executive director, Lance Lively, said. Remaining open six days a week generates a comfortable level of profits for the industry anyway, Lively noted, and Sundays off isn't such a bad thing for employees. “You don’t want to spread profits of six days over seven. It’s an economic issue at this point.”

But enough history. Bottom line: Stock up before Christmas Day and New Year's if you're hoping to host a holiday shindig, or risk relegating your holiday party to a low-key gathering around a holiday cheese ball with guests drinking flat soda from plastic cups.

And then there's the family holiday dinner. While it's nice to see loved ones this time of year, it can be forced camaraderie for some. Nothing wrong with taking the edge off just a little bit. But please: Drink responsibly and — it goes without saying but worth repeating — never, ever, drink and drive.

Happy holidays to all! Cheers.

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