Worse than the difficulty of making it through Thanksgiving week is the insufferableness of trying to reach the light at the end of the tunnel that is Christmas Eve/Day this year, during which it happens to fall on a Friday–already a non-day to begin with.
The thought of being among your co-workers outside of the office during the obligatory holiday party is enough to make you want to tear your skin off and trade it for an animal’s so you can pass yourself off as an animal and therefore not have to work. But then there is the thought of having to leave Midtown through Grand Central (or Penn Station if you’re going anywhere else besides Connecticut or Long Island), which manifests into hell on earth as everyone tries to get to Connecticut or Long Island to see the families they think they’re better than.
All in all, Christmas week at work is an extremely emotional time (more emotional than all the times you come in hungover because you hate your life), one that shouldn’t be tampered with by making people come in for longer or at all. And yes, this is true for essentially every period of the year, but especially true at Christmas when your fragile state is even more imperiled.