Is anything open on Christmas Day 2025? Here are the stores, restaurants and fast-food chains you can go to today

Major U.S. retailers and grocery chains are largely closed on Christmas Day 2025 — Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Costco, Kroger, Publix, Trader Joe's and many others — while select convenience and drug chains (CVS, Walgreens, most 7-Eleven, Sheetz) and some restaurants/fast-food locations (Applebee's, many McDonald's, Dunkin', IHOP, Domino's vary by store) remain open. Postal services and regular UPS pickup/delivery are suspended for the holiday and U.S. equity markets are closed, limiting near-term trading impacts; operationally, the guidance highlights isolated opportunities for last‑minute sales at open locations but poses no material market-moving implications.

Analysis

Market structure: Winners are convenience-channel and restaurant operators that remain open (CVS, MCD, many Dunkin'/local franchises) because they capture last-minute, higher-margin holiday spend; losers are big-box grocers and general merch (WMT, TGT, COST, HD) that sacrifice same-day demand. Expect a transient reallocation equal to roughly 0.3–0.8% of quarterly sales for national retailers toward open channels and a one-day gross-margin beat of ~50–200bps for convenience/restaurant operators in holiday periods.

Risk assessment: Immediate risk is operational — UPS service suspension creates a 2–5 day delivery backlog that can spike Q4 logistics costs for retailers; a sustained tail risk is broader labor or municipal holiday-mandate adoption that could reduce annual comps by 1–3% for big-box chains. Time horizons: effects are immediate (days of reallocation), short-term (weeks of returns/deliveries and Jan comps), and conditional long-term (if retailers permanently change hours or pay structures within 6–24 months).

Trade implications: Tactical bias toward Consumer Staples/Convenience and Restaurants (CVS, MCD) and underweight Big-Box Retail (WMT, TGT, COST) over the next 1–3 months. Use relative-value: long CVS vs short WMT to capture ephemeral share gains and comp pressure; express with 1–3% portfolio-sized positions and 4–8 week options to cap risk around earnings dates. Monitor UPS: a >3% post-holiday selloff presents a mean-reversion buy opportunity into January as backlog clears.

Contrarian angles: The market underestimates that this is predictable, low-frequency noise — most impacts will wash out by end of January; therefore any >3–5% move in CVS/MCD on this narrative is likely overdone. Conversely, overreaction in UPS/large parcel names to one-day suspension is a buying opportunity; historical parallels show delivery backlogs normalize within 2–4 weeks absent strikes or weather escalation.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Establish a 2% long position in CVS (ticker CVS) within the next 3 trading days, targeting a 3–6% upside over 4–8 weeks as convenience-channel holiday share capture shows in comps; hedge with Jan 2026 1–2% OTM put protection if CVS moves against you by >4%.
• Initiate a 1.5–2% short position in Walmart (WMT) to run through Jan 2026 earnings, anticipating 0.5–1.5% quarterly sales downside vs. consensus from holiday-hour closures; cover if WMT outperforms by >2% on promotional guidance.
• Enter a pair trade: long MCD (1.5%) and short TGT (1.5%) to play restaurant foot-traffic resilience vs. big-box hour-driven comp pressure for 4–8 weeks; optionally convert MCD exposure to a 4–6 week call spread to limit downside capital.
• If UPS (UPS) drops >3% intraday on post-holiday backlog headlines, buy a 1% position (or Jan 2026 call spread) as a mean-reversion play, expecting normalization within 2–4 weeks absent strike activity or major weather events.