2yo ds, nursery closed for 2 weeks at xmas, work wont let me have time off, wtf am i going to do

[whatamigonnado]

is this even legal.

they said i can only have time off if i work loads extra before xmas which i cannot do.

Look for better childcare that suits your needs. Childminder?

where do u live someone might b able to hep you on here!

Agree with pointydog, childminder seems like a good option as it seems ridiculous that a nursery can just take 2 weeks off because they fancy it.

I don't think there is anything wrong with your work saying you can't have christmas off, for what its worth my boss is refusing to allocated christmas holidays until October so I cannot book anything or make any decisions about our plans. TBH thats working life and it doesn't really matter if you work in retail, the financial sector the public sector or whatever. Because you get a salary your employer has some rights to dictate when you work. The counterbalance to that is that you earn money which is useful to pay bills.

However it seems you have made your mind up and weren't really posting to get suggestions, more to get us all to agree that your employers are crap, which I don't think is true.

"retail is not a great place when you have dcs is it. "

Unfortunately this is all too true - trouble is that people expect supermarkets to be open 24/7 and therefore people who work for them or for the companies that supply them have to work all hours to facilitate that.

DH and I are in the same position - we will both have to work over Christmas (not the bank holidays but every other day). DD goes to school this year but in years past her nursery has been closed for two weeks over Christmas.

You can't force your employer to allow you the time off so I'm afraid you're going to have to work round it somehow. It's only June, you have 6 months' notice. That's plenty of time to arrange more flexible childcare or to get someone to come and stay.

My family and DH's aren't local to us although fortunately they are in the UK (as are we) so that's slightly better than your situation. What we have done is invite a relative or two to stay for Christmas and they have looked after dd whilst dh and I were at work. Grandparents in particular are more than happy to do this.

I appreciate that your family are overseas but is there no way you can arrange for someone to come and stay for a couple of weeks? That's what I'd do if I were you.