If you have yet to lock in your leave for the silly season, you're leaving it a little late, if truth be told. However, you will benefit the most from this last-minute guide to maximising your annual leave this Christmas-New Year, so maybe you're onto something.
As we know, employees get a paid day off on public holidays if it falls on a day they typically would have worked. Over this festive period, there are four public holidays: Christmas Day (Monday, December 25); Boxing Day (Tuesday, December 26), New Year's Day (Monday, January 1) and the Day after New Year's Day (Tuesday, January 2).
As both sets of public holidays fall on Mondays and Tuesdays, many of you will automatically be entitled to two four-day weekends, even if you sadly must work the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in-between (these are still legally considered workdays).
If you don't have to work, hurrah - simply take three days of annual leave for December 27, 28 and 29 and hey presto, you have 11 days off from Saturday, December 23, returning to work Wednesday, January 3.
If your workplace's shutdown period concludes Monday, January 8, you may also want to take an additional three days of annual leave for January 3, 4 and 5 (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday): all in all, that's six days of annual leave for a total of 16 days out of office. Not a bad deal.
Happy almost-holidays, everyone - we're almost there!
