It’s time we did some calendar evaluating. Because we need to appreciate what this year is giving us.
Christmas Day and New Year’s Day lie seven days apart, meaning they always fall on the same day of the week. This is not insignificant. Think on the Fourth of July for a moment: If the Fourth of July’s on a Wednesday, you’ve got a whole weird week going on. If it’s on a Friday, you’ve got a long weekend, and you can work off the hangover after the fact. The Christmas/New Year’s combo doubles those stakes, and in the context of a whole lot more holiday emotion.
So, as is our duty, let’s suss out how preferable it is to have the twain fall on each day of the week:
7. Wednesday
When New Year’s and Christmas fall on a Wednesday, you can effectively get two weeks off of work. You at least get two weeks off of having to do anything all that productive. But do you really buy that that’ll be the case? Or are you going to have to panic and get a lot of work done on Monday, the 23rd, then stretch it into Tuesday, the 24th, then come back on Friday the 3rd and be expected to treat it like something of a work day when it naturally isn’t? If you can’t quote-unquote work from home, you’re burning through PTO at this point, and to make it all that much worse (as worse as Christmas and New Year’s can be made by a calendar), this setup lines up with Thanksgiving falling on November 28th, which makes the Christmas season (measured as Thanksgiving to Christmas) the shortest it can be.
Note: We aren’t really addressing those in the service industry, which is a lot of us, because if you’re in the service industry you’re screwed no matter where the calendar falls (actually, there’s just a lot less consistency over your schedule).
6. Thursday
Same deal here as Wednesday, except the Christmas season’s a day longer.
5. Sunday
You might get the Mondays off, here. I’d guess you will. Which isn’t that helpful the day after New Year’s Day but’s really helpful the day after Christmas, depending how you celebrate. There’s a solid week that’s a good no-work zone in most cases, but it’s limited to a week, keeping you from having to spend that much PTO to get a break. Thanksgiving falls on the 24th in this case, giving you six November days of Christmas, which is the third-longest it can be.
4. Saturday
Same deal as Sunday but you probably get Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve fully off while still having Sunday to recover from Christmas if you’re hungover. Only five November days of Christmas, but that’s outweighed by having those Fridays fully off. There’s a lot you can accomplish when the 23rd’s a Thursday night that feels like a Friday night.
3. Monday
You might have to go in on a Tuesday hungover here, but there’ll probably be sufficiently little on your plate that you can mail it in that day, fight your battles Wednesday and Thursday, then half-ass Friday and call it a week. As a bonus, Thanksgiving’s the 23rd in this setup, giving you a full November week of Christmas (good if you enjoy Christmas, good if Christmas stresses you out and you need more time, good for the economy I think I don’t actually know that).
2. Tuesday
Natural four-day weekends, though there’s a slight PTO issue with the Eves that might cost you two days. If there’s anything you really have to get done between Christmas and New Year’s, you can do it Thursday. There’s plenty of time to do the last-minute stuff over Saturday and Sunday. And as an added benefit, this makes the Christmas season as long as it can be, with Thanksgiving falling on the 22nd of November.
1. Friday
But for as good as Christmas-on-a-Tuesday is (or even Christmas-on-a-Wednesday, the worst option yet still a good one), what we have this year is the best. Natural four-day weekends, or effectively three and a half days if the Eves are workdays, with no PTO spent. A full weekend to recover from each day, meaning you’re basically getting four weekends in place of two, with a short week if any in the middle. Yeah, you have to go straight back into a full week of work on the 4th, and yeah, there are only four November Christmas days, but overall, we’ve got it the best this year.
So enjoy it.
