Should I book the week of Christmas off?

Posted by melancholyy-scorpio@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 23 comments

Can't decide. I'm half day Christmas Eve, closed til January 5th. I can't decide if I should book off the 22nd 23rd and the half day 24th. If I do, I'll have 16 days off in a row \*but\* I'll have less than 2 weeks to last me til October (I do have a week off booked in July). If I don't book it off, the work won't be hard anyway and it'll be a nice atmosphere. I get along with my work colleagues and we have a laugh. Make my decision for me, Reditors 🙏

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23 Comments

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Neddlings55@reddit

Id rather get paid for a relaxed work environment and an easy job and save my paid days off.

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newnortherner21@reddit

I agree, that's why I go in between Christmas and New Year.

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Other_Exercise@reddit

This is the real hustle. I do this too. You also get to do all those little things you never normally get the time to do.

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Pockysocks@reddit

I would just work it, to be honest. It sounds nice but for me personally, I'd feel as though Christmas day would be a little less special if I've already had a few days off in the run up.

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sleepyprojectionist@reddit

We had a town hall meeting last week during which our senior leadership revealed the difference in how office staff and manufacturing staff are treated. Our CEO wished everyone a happy Christmas and hoped we all had a great sixteen days off. Turns out that that the office-based staff all finish for Christmas on the 19th and are back in the office on the 5th of January. Meanwhile I have to work up until Christmas Eve and am back in work on Friday the 2nd of January. The thing is that work automatically uses three days of our annual leave to cover Christmas each year regardless of whether we are in the office or in production, so it seems a bit unfair that the office staff get double the time off that I do over Christmas for the same spend of annual leave.

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Lessarocks@reddit

That’s weird. My council are only closedChrismas day, Boxing day and New Year’s Day. That’s normal for local government. Where are you?

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sleepyprojectionist@reddit

I work in a laboratory manufacturing systems used in semiconductors, additive manufacturing and the bio-medical industry. Technically we are only _officially_ closed for the same days as you, but work automatically takes three days of annual leave to cover the time between Boxing Day and New Year. A lot of people have argued that we have never opened during that period since the company was founded, so we shouldn’t be required to use annual leave on a period that we physically cannot be at work. The counter argument is “well we could choose to open, so deal with it”. I have worked at other places that do the same thing, so for me this is almost the norm. What’s not the norm is whole other departments getting an extra week off and not being required to use any leave to cover it.

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Arnoave@reddit

Work Christmas, get paid, score brownie points for your willing attitude, have an easy 2 weeks anyway AND keep your holiday for the coming year. It's a no-brainer for me.

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Jesterstear99@reddit

Unless you work in a supermarket where you *will* earn your money, definitely work the half day on Christmas Eve. You would give up a day's holiday to not have to do a couple of hours work and eat mince pies & chocolate the rest of the morning. If you take the 23rd off as well, someone will find something for you to do (like Christmas shopping in all the crowds) unless you live on your own and don't talk to your family. I always worked any bank holidays that I could and had time off in lieu, as there is never anything to do at work except be there and you can't go anywhere if you are off for all the crowds

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melancholyy-scorpio@reddit (OP)

Thankfully I don't work in a supermarket. I worked in retail last year and worked all over Christmas including 12 hours on Xmas Eve so I have utmost respect for them and I feel very fortunate to be in this position now 🥲

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Drath101@reddit

If they worked in a supermarket they wouldn't have that many days off, so it's safe to say they're well in

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BabaYagasDopple@reddit

Save the days for after new year to give you some more days off for the rest of your holiday year

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MidnightRambler87@reddit

We don’t have the option of carrying our days over, so I’ve used the last of mine to extend my break. Three more days and then I’m off from Thursday.

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No-Explanation7952@reddit

Love working Christmas Eve personally. Can you book more time off after Christmas? I always find Christmas exhausting mentally, need to recover from it.

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JollyConfusion2545@reddit

Save the days for next year, I couldn't cope from jan to October on one week !

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thefreeDaves@reddit

Keep the days for later in the year. There’s precious little to do, it’s cold and wet and people are either skint or saving money for Christmas, so basically you’ll be kicking your heels. Also these days will be worth their weight in the better weather next year, straddle them either side of a bank holiday weekend.

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Symbolic37@reddit

Without taking it off you’ll still have 13.5 days off in a row and can save those 2.5 days for later in the year when you don’t already have a bunch of time off

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SmokeStatus1593@reddit

Just go to work. You’ve got almost two weeks off after.

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Darwen85@reddit

Save it, take a few days off here and there through October.

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asterallt@reddit

If you enjoy the people and it’s not hard then just take it easy at work for a few days and enjoy the atmosphere. You’ll thank yourself in May! Says the person who is taking time off that week to prep for Christmas because there just aren’t enough days and we thought it was a great time of year to get a new kitchen 🙄

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FunkyYoghurt@reddit

You're lucky to be off at all over the holidays outside of Education. Just book it.

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theyellowscriptures@reddit

If you have plenty of annual leave left, yes. If you don’t, no.

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