My holidays to parents are broken down into summer (July/Aug) options and school year (Sept - JUne). They get two weeks in the summer and 5 days school year as unpaid time. If they use the days at Christmas to have a full week off fine but I would still be paid for the Stats since those are closed days so they would only use 3 days for that week. Days are intended for use when a child is sick and kept home to encourage them to do that. They tend to use them at Christmas and then have to pay me in the winter when kids are sick. Either works fine for me and I get a week off at Christmas without closing.

For the summer I allow them to use the July, Aug, Sept holiday days as part of their vacation time so I don't get paid for the day but they also lose a vacation day for it. Most families book their time to go over a long weekend to give them maximum days. I don't allow this for any of the other Sept-June stats. They are paid and I am closed end of story.