Planning for Holidays

I have 2 things on my mind today - how to schedule my staff during the holiday season and how to schedule my family time. These are tough choices!

I don't have much time to post today, but I will say this - I work for a fabulous library. We provide excellent customer service, and that includes around the holidays. We do, however, close for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. We get paid for those closed days, too, which is delightfully generous! It throws a bit of a monkey wrench into our scheduling, but you know what? I love puzzles! I'll work it all out (in fact, I think it might all be worked out already) and I think all of my employees will even be quite satisfied with the results. We'll see!

Now for family! How do you schedule limited time off so that you can visit 2 sets of out-of-town parents, don't completely overlap time that other family members are sleeping in the beds you'll need, and still see everyone for the hols? Oh, add in that it's nice to visit with old friends who still live in those 2 towns, and you've got quite a scheduling cocktail, let me tell you! How do you all do it? Do you have one set thing you always do?

When Si was really little we made our families travel to us for Christmas, but now that he's older, and our parents are older as well, we travel to be with them. We'll make it work, especially since all 4 of our parents are wonderful, loving people who understand that they can't always be the center of the day. Everyone has always been so kind about sharing us with the others.