My parents did their weekly grocery shopping on Saturday nights. My father often worked Saturdays at the Firestone store in Flushing, so Saturday night was often the only time they could go.

The day they couldn’t go was Sunday. Because no supermarket in New York was open on Sunday.

Blue laws, which mandated closing stores on Sundays to honor the Christian Sabbath, were in full force in much of the nation at the time I was born. Not just supermarkets, but department stores and other retailers were shut.

The one place my family could shop on Sundays was near my father’s parents’ house in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. There, in that heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, stores were closed on Saturday.

But if you were not Christian in other places, tough. The political sway that Christian churches held in those days made the repeal of blue laws a slow process.

It wasn’t until the late 1970s that supermarkets in New York were allowed to open on Sundays. Other retailers joined them soon after.

Blue laws have been erased in most of the nation. But vestiges remain. In some states, alcohol sales are forbidden or restricted on Sundays.

And Bergen County, New Jersey – a shopping mecca Monday through Saturday that’s just a few miles from my home – still prohibits retailers to open their doors on Sunday. Even if, as was the case this past year, Christmas Eve is on a Sunday.