Mmm, I’m on a stay-cation this year because my back is acting up again and I’m confined to bed. Always seems to happen around the winter holidays - I’m starting to think the cold weather might have something to do with it. I hate being stuck in bed or on the couch, even if it’s supposed to be relaxing - thank gods for Texas and our short winters so I can be up and about again soon. I am enjoying Pandagons ongoing “rape apologist threads”, though, way more than I probably should. What is it about Amanda’s posts that bring the creeps out in force? It’s like a roach trap or something.

I’m doing the same thing this weekend - or really, my own variation.  Since family is too far away to make traveling for Thanksgiving feasible, I’ve given in and instead allowed myself to enjoy the 4 days off for once.  However, with that kind of time off comes responsibility.  For you, music weed-out.  For me, making a dent in the Holiday gift knitting.  I’m making great pace on the main project, as well as getting things sorted for the rest my list.  Only one question remains: how many skeins of Red Heart acrylic yarn does it take to knit a six pack of purple and gold LSU koozies?

“Holiday breaks are, unless you’re a government employee, usually too short…”

I get less holidays now that I work for the government than I did in the civilian sector.  FYI.

Since I don’t travel for the Thanksgiving holiday - and haven’t in the 11 years I’ve lived outside of the state in which I grew up - this is always an un-holiday for me and I love it.  I’ve noticed that my academic productivity always goes up for a bit after Thanksgiving.

I am a government employee, and I called in sick today.  We’re pretty much stuck with whatever holidays exist plus our Annual and Sick Leave.  I get plenty of flexibility, in fact I’m officially working a four ten-hour shift schedule, but I don’t think we’re much better or worse than similar jobs in the private sector.

As for the actual point of the post, I agree that more people should appreciate the value of hanging out and doing nothing.  Doing nothing allows for a lot of important things to get done: home repair projects, extensive yardwork, longer books, more writing, rest, time with the closest of loved ones, and the general self-examination that allows us to become better able to do that stuff we take vacations from.  I usually return to work with a renewed sense of giving a shit, which is important in my line of work.

For as long as I’ve been working I’ve taken a staycation the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I read trashy novels, go to cheapie matinees, and just chill. The added advantage to that particular week off is that when I come back, there isn’t a huge pile of work waiting for me because the rest of the world has been off being completely whackadoodle into family and consumerism.

I have a farm and a dog team and a full-time job, and take “staycations” 2x/year.  They consist of work, work, work, and more work.  About a year ago I took a real vacation and got the heck out of town and it was incredible.  I love my life but a little variety is nice and an occasional break from all the work is even nicer.

When you have about 90 hours of sick leave, you can use it.  Especially when you’re actually sick.  There are steps that can be taken if there’s suspicion that an employee is abusing sick leave, but there’d have to be a pattern of abuse for it to go anywhere.  There’s no blanket policy in regard to calling in sick around a holiday, but there’s a heightened level of suspicion.

No pattern=no problem.

I am a government employee, but one who is saving annual leave for imminent child-bearing, so I went to work.  And of course with hubby working nights in the ICU, it wasn’t very holidayish at all.  In our household holiday plans are dictated partly by finances and mostly by the number of family members attending school, and therefore getting holiday breaks.

And you can get away with that?

It depends on how leave time is organized.  I worked for a massive general hospital and the leave time was organized as a single pool of time for whatever you needed it for.  It didn’t matter if you were sick, your husband was in the hospital, or you needed a mental health day.  It all came out of the same pool.  Some places call it sick leave, but allow it to be used for other purposes so long as you have some accrued time, because it is time and money that technically belongs to the worker (and can be cashed out if not used), not the institution.

Last New Year’s I up and suggested to my mother, out of the blue, that we take the three-week break before spring semester starts and drive to the Grand Canyon and back.  (We live in Minnesota.)

We didn’t—-I didn’t have the money and she was, I think, a little out of her depth on the “drop everything and go far, far away” part—-but it’s a concrete example of one thing I’ve learned recently that I’m very grateful for: the ability to avoid the mental chains of the daily grind, of habit, et cetera.  I want to cultivate a fairly decent sense of “weekends are vacations,” in which to do something like visit a state park, or relax around the house, and I think I’ve got it off to a good start.

Yeah, I’m another who definitely had more time off as a private employee than I do as a government employee.  I mean, yes we do (at most gov’t agencies) get some set days off that the private sector doesn’t necessarily get, but it doesn’t really even out, in my experience.

This was a very weird Thanksgiving because I was psyching myself up for the annual four-days-with-the-parents at my brother’s house, but at the last minute my dad ended up being too sick to make the drive from Phoenix to LA.

Our “staycation” time used to be between Christmas and New Year’s, but G’s promotion means that he now has to work full days (usually with overtime) on both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Yes, my holidays have been sucking for the past few years.  My work is giving us six paid days for Christmas and New Year’s, with the option of using vacation days for the two days not covered, so at least I have some time to fly to Phoenix to see my parents over Christmas.  G, as mentioned, has zero time that he can take at the end of the year, so he gets to stay home with the cats.

I wish I could appreciate the free time more, but mostly I’m just worried about my dad and when his new kidney might come through.  Doesn’t help that I ended up with a migraine yesterday and only just managed to shake it off tonight.  At least I should be getting my new laptop from Amazon at the end of the week.

I could never get over how little annual leave people get while I lived in the US. Lots of public holidays when you and every other man, woman, family and dog are on the road and in the air, meeting the same family obligations as Amanda mentioned, but there just seemed to be so little time to have extended relaxation at a time of your choosing. And the workplace cultures I saw of presentee-ism and not taking owed leave were pretty appalling. Here in the UK I’ve got 5 weeks a year, goes up to 6 if I stay with my company 5+ years, and that’s not too unusual. It’s the land of the free over here indeed…

What Mister Z said - the US is waaaay behind on annual leave compared with, say, most of Europe (don’t know about Canada).  It seems to be rarely mentioned too.  I think I’d go mad twice over with the little amount of holiday you guys get.  And what’s with Boxing Day not being a holiday?  Sheesh. ;-p

Yet another gubmint drone here. I actually enjoy working on the day after Thanksgiving, if only because the phone hardly rings. It almost feels like a day off, since the boss is always out of town for the holiday.

Amanda, it sounds like you’re actually really enjoying your iTunes clean-up project, so this might be of no use to you.  But I read about this product called Tune Up Companion on Boing Boing a while back that cleans up and correctly tags your iTunes library automatically.  Apparently it doesn’t know everything, so it would leave quite a few tunes for you to wade through manually, but it gets a lot of the heavy lifting done for you automatically.  Here’s the link: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/16/tuneup-cleans-itunes.html

I don’t think Canada’s any better than the U.S. in terms of paid leave; certainly neither hold a candle to Europe.

My wife and I make most of our time off stay-cations. But that’s mainly because we each loathe our parents. That we now live ~7,000 km from them just makes it easier to stay put.

But there’s more to it: my wife works full-time, I’m a full-time parent, and our daughter is eleven months old. So between time, energy, and whether Zoe’s awake, we’re already dealing with enough factors without adding in “being in someone else’s house and having to co-entertain our hosts.”

Vacations are our time to really reconnect as a couple.

I think I see why all the government employees and Amanda are confused about the leave situation.  Amanda seems to be talking about education.  Of course people in education get lots of time off.  Universities are mostly closed for large swathes of December/January, not to mention the summer situation if you are a teacher in K-12 (like my mom).  Those of us out here in the DC area usually aren’t thinking about universities when we think of government employees.  I had to schedule my vacation time almost a month in advance to be out of the office for the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I’m going to have to do a similar thing to take vacation days around Christmas.

We live in Tulsa, and my family is all on the west coast and my wife’s family is all three hours away in Missouri.  We normally spend every other holiday on the road, sleeping in someone else’s guest bedroom.  But it’s become our tradition that Thanksgiving is the one holiday we spend at home.  And I love it.  It’s so nice having these four days to just relax. 

It’s also become our tradition to get our Christmas tree on Thanksgiving weekend, and I’m looking forward to doing that later today.

If I want to read digs against government employees I can always go to RedState.  Please retract the “government employees are lazy moron who never work” crack.  You worked for a university, which has scheduled breaks every year.  The rest of us get the holidays listed in the state calendar.  Look it up.

I am really fed up with the reflexive swipes at government employees.  I thought “us liberals” were in favor of the government taking more responsibility for the general welfare.  Well, don’t forget that “the laborer is worthy of his hire.”  If you don’t want them ever to get a day off they’re not going to do a very good job for those who need them.

“And you can get away with that?  I’ve never been a government worker, but everyplace I have worked, if you called out on your last scheduled day before or first scheduled day after a holiday, you lost the holiday pay.”

The abuse of sick leave is obviously discouraged, but one of the great things about having reasonable amounts of sick leave is that it discourages presenteeism.  Since a lot of people tend to go and wallow in pits of non-regional disease around big holidays and do stupid but ever-so-fun things that they probably shouldn’t around the lesser holidays, it’s not exactly surprising when more employees than usual turn up with food poisoning or a bad headcold or a pulled hamstring after a holiday.  The last thing you want, especially if you’re running a department that deals with the public, is a Typhoid Mary hanging around the office and spreading Thanksgiving Plague to the rest of the population while insisting that it’s just allergies because they can’t afford to take a three-day pay hit.

This “stay-cation” slumming of sorts is what those who can’t afford to travel do all the time.

It’s awesome when it is a choice.  When it’s forced on you, not so much.

My parents and my in-laws both live within an hour of us.  We’re closer to my parents (emotionally, not distance-wise) and my family has much stronger holiday traditions, so we spend most holidays with them.  It’s generally pretty non-stressful, as it’s close and my parents’ house is set up for my toddlers.  The extended family comes to us, which is also nice.

This Thanksgiving, my parents were out of the country.  My in-laws came over and we had takeout.  It was as quiet and relaxing as possible, given that I’m five months pregnant and have a really nasty cold.

(Our best “staycations” are every couple of months, when we get my parents to take the kids for a weekend.  My husband and I just hang out and reconnect as adults.)

jessica, it was by no means obvious that Amanda was commenting on the lack of private sector vacation.  The phrase was “Holiday breaks are, unless you’re a government employee, usually too short and completely dominated by family obligations and other hustle and bustle.”  This is exactly the kind of government-bashing done by conservatives.  I want an apology, and not one of those “I’m sorry you have no sense of humor and got offended at my hilarious joke” apologies either.

Since my family is about 1,500 miles away from Seattle (in MN & WI) and it’s just too much money to come for Thanksgiving and Xmas and my boyfriend has rich parents who can pay for both his Xmas and Thanksgiving plane tickets I’m here having Thanksgiving with a good friend from a former job (retail will unite people who work in it like nothing else) and trying like hell to get a sweater I promised my Grandmother for Xmas done (never again) along with a bunch of other knitting projects. Then… cleaning!
I should be getting my emissions test but I’ll wait until the weekend after next for that.
The only things that I bought on Black Friday were groceries and drain cleaner. Oh yeah- Economy you can thank me later.

I’m on endless stay cation….it’s called unemployment!

I’ve watched dumb movies, read a ton of books, cleaned every closet, and napped like an old cat..I’m ready to go back to work now please
Honestly, you just do not know how mushy your brain can get in five weeks…serious mush

It’s awesome when it is a choice.  When it’s forced on you, not so much.

This is one of those times I have to say I just don’t agree.  I’d love to be able to afford to be with family for Thanksgiving, but I can’t.  I don’t have the option of just going into work on Thursday and Friday, either - the company is closed.  Thus, I have 4 days off work with no structured plans; AKA ‘stay-cation’.  4 days off still totally rocks, whether you can afford to travel or not.  In fact it’s kind of ideal, because if I had the option of working, it would feel irresponsible not to go in for financial reasons.

The phrase was “Holiday breaks are, unless you’re a government employee, usually too short and completely dominated by family obligations and other hustle and bustle.” This is exactly the kind of government-bashing done by conservatives.

Or it was Amanda comparing the amount of vacation time she used to get as a government employee to the amount of time she gets now in the private sector.  As someone in the same situation, it was pretty weird going from our state-mandated 10 holidays a year to being lucky to get 5 at my private-sector job.  They only just started giving the day after Thanksgiving as a paid holiday last year after 50 years in business.  At UCLA I got two weeks of vacation when I started—at my private sector job, I only got one.  Etc.

Thank you Amanda.  Great point.

The way most Americans talk about vacations and holidays is what Orwell called “doublespeak”.  Like relaxing with a soda or coffee (relax with a stimulant? huh?), or unwinding by watching TV or shopping to relieve stress.  It’s perversely sick.

For myself, we road-tripped to my mom’s house, stayed a night (without reservations!) in two four star hotels (one right on the beach) and otherwise had a grand time buying from not a single national chain.

Well, except for the headlamp I had to replace that went out on the trip.

This was the first 3- or 4-day weekend all year where we were home enjoying ourselves.  Spouse is a nurse and only had to work one 12-hour shift out of the 4 days.  We read, read to and played with the kids, put up the pagan tree & decorations, baked cookies (pecan butter - yummy!).  It was one of the more relaxing times I’ve had since our oldest was born 3 1/2 years ago.

US holiday time sucks.  I’ve worked at my company for going on 12 years and I get 3 weeks of vacation.  I need to pass my 15th anniversary before getting 4 weeks.  25 years for 5 weeks.  I’d be more likely to leave if I knew I could get 3 or more weeks at the next employer, but 2 weeks for the first 5 years is very common.  I would be very sad to have to go back to 2 weeks vacation.

The very term “staycation” depresses me. “I’m so broke all I can do is sit and watch TV at home.” Whee.

That said, I may be doing one on Wednesday, mainly because I am going on an actual vacation and need time to get my shit together before then.

My family lives in another state, and since I care waaay more about Christmas than I do Thanksgiving (and can’t afford to fly out for both), “Thanksgiving” just means a 4-day weekend to me. I usually go see a movie, but this year there was nothing out I cared to see, so I bicycled around town taking photographs. It was cool because no one was around to bug me, they were all stuffing their faces with turkey and bickering with drunk relatives!