Sort it in October. Send the Christmas plan round in the first week, ask for leave requests by 31 October, decide how many people can be off on any one day and then it's first come, first served up to that number. Decide now what staff get for St Stephen's Day on Saturday 26 December, because there's no automatic Monday off. One short email covers the lot.
If we're honest, Christmas leave has never really been a legal problem for us. It's a timing problem. Everybody wants the same handful of days between Christmas and New Year, nobody mentions it until about three weeks before and suddenly you're the one having slightly awkward chats by the kettle.
So this is what's worked for us running a small team - not what a big company's HR department would do to cover itself. There's a legal bit at the bottom if you want it, and a couple of Irish rules this year that are genuinely worth knowing.
When should staff book Christmas annual leave?
We ask for everything by the end of October and we tell people that's the deadline at the start of October. That gives us all of November to sort out clashes while there's still time to do something about them, and it gives staff plenty of notice to sort out family plans - flights home, the in-laws, all of it.
We've tried later. It doesn't work. By December half the requests are already "sorted" in people's heads and you're not really deciding anything, you're just finding out. And if you want people to take leave on dates you pick (for a closure, say), you need to be talking to them at least a month before anyway, so October fits nicely.
| When | What we do |
|---|---|
| First week of October | Decide if we're closing, running a skeleton crew or staying open. Decide what everyone gets for St Stephen's Day. Send the Christmas email. |
| 31 October | Deadline for Christmas leave requests. |
| First week of November | Say yes or no to every Christmas request. Clashes get sorted now, not later. |
| Mid November | Check who's still got loads of leave left - especially if your leave year ends in December - and give them a nudge. |
| Early December | A quick reminder - hours, who's in, payday, who to ring if something breaks. |
| January | Ask what went wrong. Write it down for next year, because you will forget. |
The St Stephen's Day question you need to answer this year
Christmas Day is a Friday this year, which is easy. St Stephen's Day is Saturday 26 December - and unlike in the UK, Ireland doesn't automatically move it to the Monday. So Monday 28 December is a normal working day unless you decide otherwise.
Staff still get something for St Stephen's Day though. For a public holiday that falls on a Saturday, you decide which of these they get: a paid day off within a month, an extra day of annual leave or an extra day's pay. Plenty of businesses simply give Monday 28 December as the paid day off - it's tidy, everyone knows where they stand and it means one less day of leave to find if you're closing. Whatever you go for, say it in October, because staff can ask you at least 21 days before and if you haven't answered at least 14 days before, they get the actual day.
All the dates and the detail, including part-timers, are in Christmas bank holidays in Ireland 2026.
We've had the version where nobody thinks about leave until December. Then someone realises they've still got a pile of days to use before the year ends, asks for most of the second half of December and you're stuck - say no and it's a problem, say yes and you're short. Completely avoidable if you look at who's got days left back in October or November. Not on 20 December, which is when we noticed.
How many staff can be off at Christmas?
As many as you can lose and still get done the work that actually comes in that week. So work out the minimum you need first and the number off sort of falls out of it. We literally write it down day by day, from about 21 December to 4 January.
Be honest with yourself on this one. A lot of us insist on full cover for a week where the phone barely rings. Others leave one poor person on their own on the 30th, drowning. Have a look back at last year's emails or orders for that week - it'll tell you more than any rule of thumb.
- Do it per team, not for the whole business. Two people off out of ten sounds grand until you realise they're both in accounts and nobody's doing the invoices.
- Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are normal working days unless you say otherwise. Plan cover or say you're closing early - just don't leave it vague.
- This year there are four normal working days between Christmas and New Year (28, 29, 30 and 31 December) - or three if you give Monday the 28th as the St Stephen's Day day off.
In Book Time Off you set how many people can be off at once in each department. When a team's full for a date, nobody else in it can book that day - so it's first come, first served without you having to stand guard over it. You can still override it as an admin if there's a good reason. It won't decide who deserves Christmas off for you (sadly) but it does stop the double-booking before it happens. There's a quick guide to setting a maximum absent if you want to see how.
→ Start free trialShould we close or stay open over Christmas?
If your customers disappear between Christmas and New Year, we'd close. It's simpler, it's fairer and everyone comes back actually rested. If they don't disappear, stay open with a small crew. There's no Irish survey on how many businesses close (we looked), but the closest we've found is from the UK, where a Kaspersky survey of 500 small business owners reported in December 2025 found more than four in five shut for at least a day.
The thing nobody tells you about closing is what it does to leave planning - nobody's fighting over the 29th because everyone's got the 29th. You're asking people to use some of their annual leave on dates you've picked though, so talk to them early. We've gone through the pros and cons properly in do companies close over Christmas in Ireland?
Who gets Christmas off?
We go with first come, first served, up to the number we can have off - and if two requests land on the same day, whoever worked last Christmas gets it. It's quick to explain, nobody can say it's personal and it rewards the people who plan ahead.
We've looked at the other ways of doing it. They all sound fairer than they turn out to be:
- Taking turns each year is lovely in theory, but somebody has to keep track and it goes to pieces the minute someone leaves or joins.
- A ballot feels fair but it's a lottery for anyone with actual plans, and we reckon it causes more moaning than it saves.
- Parents first sounds kind. But family status is one of the protected grounds under Irish equality law, so treating people differently because they do or don't have kids is asking for trouble. We'd steer well clear of making it the rule.
We've gone through all of these properly, including what to do about staff who don't celebrate Christmas, in who gets Christmas off? And if someone does end up working Christmas Day, here's what they're owed - it's more than in the UK.
We've had three people ask for the same days between Christmas and New Year within about a week of each other. We couldn't let all three go. The chat with the one who missed out was awkward, mostly because there wasn't a rule - it felt like we were picking favourites, even though we weren't. Once there was a rule everyone knew about up front, that conversation more or less stopped happening.
Can I make staff take annual leave at Christmas?
Yes. In Ireland the employer decides when annual leave is taken - so you can ask people to use some of it for a Christmas closure. You do have to take their family responsibilities and their chance to rest into account, and you need to talk to them at least a month before the leave starts. Tell people in October and you're well inside that.
The one to think about in advance is the person who's already used most of their leave by December - new starters especially. Decide what you'll do before it comes up and do the same for everyone. There's more on this in can my employer make me take annual leave at Christmas?
If you're closing, Book Time Off lets you do a group booking - the same dates for the whole team in one go, and one click to cancel it if plans change. Ireland's public holidays are built in and never come off anyone's allowance. Honest note: it shows St Stephen's Day on the Saturday, like the law does, and it won't pick the day-off-or-extra-pay option for you - but if you give an extra day of leave, you can add it to each person's allowance.
→ Book the Christmas closure · start free trialWhat to put in your Christmas email to staff
One short email with the dates, the deadline and the rules. That's genuinely all we've ever needed. We don't have a formal Christmas policy and we don't think most small teams need one. Your team just wants to know if they're working on the 29th.
The test we use is: does it answer the questions people would otherwise come and ask us? Which normally means:
- Which days are we open and what are the hours?
- Are we closing - and which days come out of annual leave?
- What do we get for St Stephen's Day, seeing as it's a Saturday?
- When do Christmas leave requests need to be in?
- What happens if too many people want the same day?
- Can I work from home between Christmas and New Year? (See working from home over Christmas.)
- When's payday in December (and how long is it until January's)? More on that in Christmas payday in Ireland.
- Who do I ring if something breaks while we're shut?
Here's roughly what ours looks like:
Hi all,
Here's the plan for Christmas so nobody's guessing. We're open as normal up to [Wednesday 23 December] and we'll close at [1pm] on Christmas Eve. Then we're shut until [Monday 4 January].
St Stephen's Day falls on a Saturday this year, so instead you'll get [Monday 28 December off, paid]. The other days we're closed ([29, 30 and 31 December]) come out of your annual leave, so please keep [3] days back for them.
If you want any other time off in December, can you get it booked by 31 October? We can have [2] people off from each team on any one day and it's first come, first served. If it's a tie, whoever worked last Christmas gets first dibs.
December payday is [Friday 18 December], so January's going to feel like a long wait - just a heads up.
Any questions, give me a shout.
Swap the bits in blue for yours and send it. We've put this one and five more (closure, opening hours, deadline reminder, payday and back in January) in our Christmas email to staff templates, with a Word download.
Christmas leave mistakes we've made
Pretty much every Christmas leave headache we've had came from one of these. Learn from ours, it's cheaper.
- Taking requests any old way. A word in the kitchen, a text, a Post-it on the monitor. If there isn't one place requests go, some of them will go missing. Ours did.
- Approving them in the order we happened to notice them. That isn't first come, first served, it's first one we saw - and people do notice the difference.
- Not looking at leave balances until December. By then anyone with a pile of days left has nowhere to put them. We've written up how to avoid it in use it or lose it annual leave.
- Forgetting about Christmas Eve. It isn't a public holiday. If you're closing early, say what time, or you'll get five different ideas of what "early" means.
- "We'll sort it nearer the time." We've said this. Nearer the time is when everyone's already made their plans.
And if you do end up having to say no to someone, there's a right and a wrong way to do it - see can I refuse annual leave at Christmas?
We've had a leave request come in on a Post-it, get agreed in passing and then completely forgotten about. Nobody did anything wrong really - it just never got written down anywhere. We found out when two people turned out to be off on the same day. That was more or less the day we stopped taking requests anywhere other than one system.
With Book Time Off staff book from their phone or laptop and their approver gets an email - one click to approve or decline, no logging in. If a request gets left sitting there, the approver gets a reminder the next working day. Everyone can see what they've used and what they've got left, and the whole team's on one wallchart. Honestly, it's not clever. It just means nothing gets lost, which was the whole point for us.
→ Start free trialThe legal bit, if you need it
You don't need any of this to get Christmas sorted, but here's what the rules actually say in case someone asks.
- Ireland has 10 public holidays, including Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day. When one falls on a day the business isn't open, like a Saturday, there's no automatic next-day-off - the employer chooses a paid day off within a month, an extra day of annual leave or an extra day's pay (WRC, Citizens Information).
- Staff can ask at least 21 days before a public holiday which benefit they'll get. If you haven't told them at least 14 days before, they're entitled to the day itself off (Citizens Information).
- The employer decides when annual leave is taken, taking account of work needs, the employee's family responsibilities and their chance to rest, and must consult them at least one month before the leave (Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, s.20).
- The statutory minimum is four working weeks of annual leave a year - usually 20 days for a five-day week (Citizens Information).
- Family status and religion are two of the nine protected grounds under the Employment Equality Acts, so be careful with rules like "parents first" (WRC).
Sources
| WRC | Public holidays · Public holiday entitlements and the four options. Checked October 2026. |
| WRC | Public holidays during the Christmas period · Christmas Day and St Stephen's Day entitlements. Checked October 2026. |
| Citizens Information | Public holidays · The 21-day and 14-day rule, part-time workers. Checked October 2026. |
| Citizens Information | Annual leave · Who decides when leave is taken, the leave year. Checked October 2026. |
| Irish Statute Book | Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, section 20 · Times and pay for annual leave. Checked October 2026. |
| WRC | Employment equality · The nine discriminatory grounds. Checked October 2026. |
| Kaspersky via TechRound (UK data) | Kaspersky survey of 500 UK small business owners · Reported 5 December 2025. UK figures - there's no Irish equivalent. |
FAQs
This is practical, general information for employers in Ireland. If you've got a dispute brewing or something unusual in a contract, check with the Workplace Relations Commission (its information service is free) or an employment solicitor.