to think that that employees with small dc huold have preference on having xmas eve off work?

[pippylongstockings]

I work in an office with over 15 employees - 4 of us have young DC ranging from 11 to 2 years old - Surely at christmas it is not being unreasonable to think that the minority of 4 could have Christmas Eve off work?

BUT No, it is done on a random lottery - why ?

Honestly, I feel christmas is for the children and working til 4pm on xmas eve is not a happy place to be if you have kids at home waiting for you.

booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohyoooo, that's really grim and no-one should be in the situation your mum is in. It still doesn't mean that children's needs are not important. Shouldn't a responsible employer try to balance the needs of of all employees?

Quite agree greenbananas. After all, we all know when it's happening, it shouldn't be too difficult to agree to a holiday plan that considers everyone.

green, you're not understanding me. i am not saying that gaelic's children are less important than my gran. i am asking her why she thinks they are more important so as to get priority over xmas. it is grim for my gran but my mum accepts that there will be years where she just has to work because that is what is fair. she doesn't expect priority treatment because she has to look after her mum the same way she doesn't give priority treatment to parents when she is working out the rotas. it is done fairly.

i totally agree with you, responsible employers should try and balance the needs of all employees which is why a lottery scheme or taking turns is the best way. giving priority to parents is not balancing teh needs of all staff.

How selfish are you!! So don't some of your colleagues have a long way to travel to see family at Xmas? Maybe they've got plans? Imagine if you were a health worker - have to work Xmas day and Boxing day - no choice in it - kids or no.

Personally, I think that workplaces that do not need to be open Xmas Eve (obviously ruling out shops, hospitals, fire stations etc. etc.) should just close. I have worked Xmas Eve before and, as I said, been mighty pissed off that it was just treated as a party day when I could have been at home doing something useful with my time.

gaelicsheep I must be a terrible mother then, if Chr Eve is the most important bit of all .

DH always takes them to visit rellies on Chr Eve and in the past I have either worked or spent the day preparing food in peace.

Actually to lots of people Christmas is important for all kinds of reasons. I am no longer a child but it still matters. To suggest otherwise is rather bizarre.

BTW I agree with those who say take turns. We used to do that at my old job where 24/7 (sort of) cover was needed.

Some woul doffer to work New Year, others Christmas. Seemed to work OK.

The problem with closing xmas eve if it is feasible is it has to be worked into your holiday allocation. Anyone who doesn't celebrate christmas for whatever reason then loses a chosen holiday date. If you work in a factory with shutdowns you know you have a week / two weeks to plan something, to many people xmas eve alone would be a wasted day.

For me, as a reluctant WOHM it is very important to be with my DCs on Xmas Eve. That is how I remember it as a child - my mum doing the preparations with us getting increasingly excited and my dad at work til at least 7 or 8pm. But your DCs get time with your DH instead which is great too. Presumably he gets the day off then?

Sorry, haven't read through all the posts yet, but YABU to expect preferential treatment because you have children (and let's face it, that's what this would be). Why should you be given priority time off above others?

OP - you are being VU. As others have said, this is why non parents like myself sometimes have our tolerance and patience strained. For many years when I was single, i would travel back to Wales on Christmas Eve to see family from where I was living over 200 miles away. Cover was something we took in turn in the office. Parents are being unreasonable if they expect to get first pick of Christmas, summer holidays etc. We have to tolerate parents taking time off at the drop of a hat when your LOs are ill, cover for you if childcare falls through and grit our teeth when yet another mum comes back asking for flexible working that somehow never seems to involve covering for us if we need a dental appt or would just like to get off early for once.

Those of us who don't have children DO have families, that we love and care for and want to spend time with, and are often carers too in the practical sense. My best friend is childless and last year she was nursing her mum through terminal cancer, since her siblings were too busy with their many children. Would you have preferred her to stay in the office just so you can go and wrap your presents?

I am also a bit cheesed off that you seem to think you have the insight into how we celebrate. I'm a Christian, and yes of course Easter is important but Christmas is a hugely important festival - to us, the occasion is about love, family and sharing not how many presents or how much wine.

Anyhow, why am I fighting this one? It isn't my thread. Where are you OP? (More sensible than me and in bed I should think!)

Honey - I have an enforced holiday on New Years Eve. I can't understand why, it's just another day. And everyone has an enforced holiday on New Years Day so that the drunken ones can nurse their hangovers. Give me Xmas Eve any day!

Hmmm, gaelicsheep, my bro doesn't work in any of those services, but if there was no one on call in his office then we'd probably have no fuel to cook our Xmas dinners with.

Understand why you would want it off, but YABVU.
Its very un-PC (and illegal!)to say, but its attitudes like yours that used to make me hate employing people with young children.

I used to encourage my staff to sort it out amongst themselves by volunteering for two of Xmas Eve, Boxing day, NYE or NYD. Because when its left to the boss to allocate days, someone always gets the hump / calls in sick.

I know its not fair gailic but the bank holidays are already in place.

I guess on the young fairly hip kid forums out there the young free and single are bemoaning the same points for new years eve - I know that I get totally fucked off that my company shuts early on new years eve to get to the pub so expects me to come in early to make the hours up, Try getting childcare from 6.30 am on NYE it bites .... their compromise to make it up is as a LATE the following week and pay my childminder overtime.

whoops - misread youve got eforced new years eve too sorry

for you too!

YABVVU - work is work and you get paid to do a job. Why are you more important then someone without kids ??

I do work in a place where we have 24 hour / 365 day cover - people can either choose to work Xmas or New years..that is fair, expecting parents only to have time off is not fair - although a lottery type style isn't fair either...

Honey! The way I see it, it's OK for parents with children to have to be off at New Year, when we can't do anything/go anywhere because we can't afford a babysitter or because, quite frankly, we have no desire to. But it's not OK for others to make sacrifices on Christmas Eve for the sake of those with children.

Jux - clearly I wasn't going to list every possible workplace that might require someone to be in on Christmas Eve!

FunkyCherry - that is perfectly fair, and I would volunteer to cover the New Year ones, and possibly Boxing Day. I for one would take Christmas Eve unpaid if needs be.

Look I've gone and done it again. Duh!!

i am in northern ireland. i can think of at least two bank holidays that i am forced to take off work (st patrick's day and 12th of july). for alot of people those days are just a piss up for a lot of other people they mean something. it's the way things are. while christmas may mean little to someone, they could love having the NYD holiday. people will never all agree on which holidays are important to take as bank holidays but at teh minute xmas eve isn't one of them so people have to take turns in work.

well gaelicsheep he always takes it off I guess. As a day's leave I mean.

In the industry we were Formerly In (both made redundant last year) I think it was actually not seen as a day people especially wanted off, so he would work Dec 27 or 28 or similar.

They do get lots of time with their dad, always have. It is great

BTW everyone doesn't have an enforced holiday on NYD. I nearly always used to work on that particular Bank Holiday. I was also not in any of the services you mention.

BTW why do you imagine that no parents want NYD off anyway???

Just cause you don't like it, others may have a family tradition of an NYD walk, or family outing to the footie?

Fine, so make it work then and not just some ridiculous extended office party. I work in local government (not housing or social services or roads (non-exclusive list), and nobody ever phones on Xmas Eve anyway. It's a complete waste of time being there.

Very unreasonable. Who are you to say that those without children are worth less than you? Who are you to say that they can't POSSIBLY have ANYTHING important to do with their lives? Who are you to dictate when they can and can't take their holiday (and we've ran into this one before with hubby being blocked from taking holiday during school holiday time back when I was a full-time teacher)?

My family live 4 hours away from us. My husband's family live either I think it's about a 16 hour drive (they're up in the Scottish islands), or a train > flight (which incidentally only goes three times a week - limiting when we'd have to take leave to go up there for the hols) > 3 hour drive... by your warped logic - we should never be allowed to have Christmas with them because he'd be bound to be in work on Christmas Eve. Sorry - but that's the sort of idiotic, prejudiced, judgemental reasoning that feeds the really militant child-free lobby - and on this one, I can understand how they feel.

I HATE HATE HATE the assumption that because I don't have kids my life matters not. I hate the assumption that my life is endless drinking, parties, no responsibilities - that I'm open to be available for all the shitty stuff, the lousy shifts, the crappy weekend duties - that I basically don't fucking matter in this world. I already deal with fertility issues and miscarriages when I do concieve - rub my nose in it about the insignificance of my life a bit more why don't you? Then you complain when non-parents finally snap back and don't want to cover for people in family emergencies and the like... I'm not surprised if you turn around and tell them that they're the ones who always have to work things like Christmas Eve to be honest - goodwill only goes so far if you want to set things up to repeatedly shit on one section of society.

That Debbie in accounts that you assume doesn't have anything more important to do with her life so should be obliged to make sacrifices for the sake of your children... what about if she's got a chronically ill parent some distance away that she'd like to have a chance of making it home to spend one last Christmas with? What if she's involved with the Church and it's an important religious day for her? What if, shockingly, Christmas is just a horrifically painful time of year, wrapped up in loss and grief and she wants to avoid all the enforced joviality and talk of happy families by taking some of her annual leave and hiding away at home with an entire box set of Sex and the City and the contents of the chocolate aisle at Tesco (my current plan)? Oh no! Because she's child-less/free (use your terminology of choice depending on your situation) she MUST just want to spend it all in the hairdressers before going out and getting bladdered - because you can't POSSIBLY have any significance or responsiblity if you don't have kids... Give it a rest... we already don't fucking matter enough in this world, we're already the group it's still socially acceptable to get your judgey pants out and stereotype to the eyeballs - just give it a fucking rest - OTHER PEOPLE ON THIS PLANET MATTER TOO OK? COMPRENDEZ??!!?!?!

To the others who've pointed out you're unreasonable... thank you for being sane and having some perspective that fairplay and equality go beyond you and your own offspring.

seriously gaelic i think you need to rethink your job. christmas eve is claerly a very important day for you and your job doesn't permit you to always enjoy it. the fact that in your office xmas eve isn't real work still doesn't justify parents getting priority over otehr staff for holidays. i think if you want that benefit you should look for a job somewhere that closes for xmas day.