Christmas Break

When I started working at Canisius College in 1996 I soon discovered the joy of the academic Christmas break. The college would close between Christmas and New Years which would give us at least a week off and sometimes as many as twelve days. This would occur during the time when the kids would be off from school for the break too. Becky would also be off at that time from teaching classes between semesters. It worked out all around for us.

We would have a work Christmas party usually around the the 23rd and then the college would shut down but of course they depended on the day of the week too.  The library would be closed during the break. In fact all buildings were shut down and the heat turned off as a cost saving measure. Nobody could work even if you wanted to. The first couple of years I worked there we were required to take vacation days during that break. Now we did have a generous amount of vacation time but there was some discontent on campus about the requirement of taking that time because the college was closed. Previously the buildings stayed open although there were no classes or official office hours and people could go in and work and save their vacation time.

A year or so after the mandatory staff shutdown the College came out with a statement that all time off required by the College because of the building shutdowns would not count against accumulated vacation leave time. They said it was a Jesuit thing not to make people take vacation days because of their attempt to save money not heating buildings during the holiday break.

Now everybody was really happy. The policy added at least of week of vacation time for everyone although most people stayed home and didn't travel but you could. We liked having the time at home with the family. Becky and I were both home all that week and so were Katie and Sean. Family Time.

It always seemed to snow a lot during that week but it didn't matter. We were all home anyway. We had also moved into our new house in 1997.

Before that time there was no Christmas Break from work. When I worked at the public library downtown we worked on Christmas Eve and then again the day after Christmas and all through that week. There was no Christmas Break whatsoever. 

The same at the ArtTree. We were always very busy working on Christmas Eve with last minute shoppers and then right back to work the day after Christmas. That was retail.