It's July Fourth! Parades! Cookouts! Fireworks!

It's also a Wednesday in the middle of a work week. Deciding whether or not to take time off can be a summer dilemma.

"It's just confusing," said Tom Leoni, a volunteer firefighter in Boston. "Do you take a couple days before or after? It's confusing."

Thiago Manso, a waiter, ended up taking two days midweek.

"Even, like, my job doesn't know what to do," he said. "They don't know if they should give us off like on a weekend or the middle of the week or last weekend."

Steve Spadt, visiting Boston from Philadelphia, took the whole week off.

"I only have to take four days off, and I get a five-day vacation," he said. " It's a good deal."

Tovia Smith / NPR

/

NPR

But there are many not celebrating.

"Aww, miserable," said 40-year-old truck driver Kevin Healy, who needs to save his vacation days for Christmas. "No partying 'cause you gotta work the next day. It's ridiculous."

Some business owners, such as general contractor Matt Tripp and architect Bill Whitlock, have their own complaints. Because staff didn't show up, they lost a week of productivity.

They'd like to see lawmakers ensure that Independence Day is always a long weekend — not a week.

"It should be like Thanksgiving, first Friday or Monday of July, every year," Tripp said.

Whitlock thinks that move would get a lot of voter support.

Down the street at the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum, people are reenacting a different grievance. Tourist traffic here was light Monday and Tuesday, but Executive Director Shawn Ford is counting on things picking up at the end of the week. Either way, Ford says, the holiday should not be changed.

"You gotta celebrate the Fourth on the Fourth," he said. "[It's] our nation's birthday."

But love it or hate, the Fourth of July won't fall on Wednesday again for more than a decade.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.