December holidays: How to get 10 days off with 4 days leave

Here’s how you can turn four days of annual leave into 10 days off this December.

December leaves South Africans with a few more public holidays to end of the year.

If you plan around this, you would be able to get 10 days off with just four days of leave.

The public holidays this December are:

• Wednesday, 16 December – Day of Reconciliation
• Friday, 25 December – Christmas Day
• Saturday, 26 December – Day of Goodwill

And following shorty thereafter:

• Friday, 1 January – New Year’s Day

If you take Monday, 28 December to Thursday, 31 December of annual leave, you will have 10 days off in total.

This is because Christmas Day falls on a Friday and New Year’s Day falls on the next Friday.

Fancy a mid-month break?

You could also have a quick-mid month break.

Day of Reconciliation (16 December) falls on a Wednesday, which makes a long weekend awkward.

But you have two options:

• Take Thursday 17 and Friday, 18 December: Wednesday to Sunday is five days for two leave days
• Take Monday 14 and Tuesday, 15 December: Saturday 12 to Wednesday 16 is five days for two leave days

If you did both you’d get nine days off for four annual leave days in the period of 12 to 20 December.

THE SCHOOL CALENDAR

Parents may also want to take the leave calendar into consideration.

Schools close on 10 December and reopen on 13 January 2027.

If you you only have a few days to take, you could take 28 to 31 December. It is also important to note your company’s shutdown period, if there is one.

Apply for leave early as most want leave in December. Book your travel for the off-peak days. Take a look at how much it costs to drive from Johannesburg to Durban here.