Newspapers and Christmas

As I picked up the newspaper from my front yard this morning, I noticed how skinny it is. Is it because there is less news in the week before Christmas or is it because the journalists are all on holidays?

One of the perennial (in the sense of it occurs annually) mysteries of my life is why there is no newspaper on Christmas Day (or Good Friday), which are ironically two days in which I have plenty of time to read and enjoy a newspaper.

The "obvious" reason is that the staff of the newspaper want to have those days off to attend to their family celebrations and religious devotions etc. But my problem is this. The newspaper is written and printed the night before and it's delivered in the early hours of the morning to my front yard. How does any of that interfere with the traditional celebration of Christmas or Good Friday? And since newspapers are published the morning after Christmas and Good Friday, when were the staff working? Presumably on Christmas Day and Good Friday. It makes no sense to me at all.

Maybe the real issue that is nobody wants to read a newspaper on those days so they won't buy one? Or maybe nobody wants to advertise on those days because the shops are closed?

I dunno, but every year it makes me wonder ...