Daycare Holiday Closures: Policy, Tuition, Letter

It's the week before Thanksgiving. At pickup, a dad asks if you're open on Friday. His office is. Ten minutes later a mom asks the same thing, then asks, a little carefully, whether she'll be charged for the days you're closed over Christmas. You give both of them the right answer. You also realize you've now given it out loud nine times this week, and that it's written down nowhere a parent would actually look.

Holiday closures aren't a hard policy. They're an easy policy that most centers decide in pieces: one holiday at a time, in whatever month it comes up. That's what turns them into friction. The fix is to decide everything once, write it down, and let a calendar do the talking.

Decide the whole year at once

Sit down once, ideally in early fall, and set every closure for the next twelve months. That means holidays, teacher in-service days, and any winter break week. Families plan their own work leave around your calendar, and the earlier they have it, the fewer pickup-line questions you get.

A useful starting point is the federal holiday calendar. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management lists 11 federal holidays a year. You may not need all of them, and you may want days that aren't on the list, like the Friday after Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve. Treat the federal list as a checklist and go through it one day at a time:

• Do your families work that day? If most of your parents are hospital staff, retail workers, or in a business that never closes, closing costs them more than it costs a center full of office workers.
• Can you staff it? Ask your teachers early. A day you're open but can't keep in ratio is worse than a day you're closed.
• What did attendance look like last year? If a day around a holiday was half-empty last year, that tells you something. Look at your own records instead of guessing.

Write the weekend rule down

This is the question that catches people. Christmas Day 2026 is a Friday, and so is New Year's Day 2027, so those two are easy. But Christmas 2027 falls on a Saturday. Do you close the Friday before? The federal rule is a reasonable default: when a holiday lands on Saturday, the Friday before is observed, and when it lands on Sunday, the Monday after is. Whatever you choose, put it in one sentence in your handbook so you only answer it once.

Your parent handbook is where this list lives permanently. If you're building or rewriting one, our parent handbook guide walks through the hours-and-holidays section, and the free handbook builder starts you with an editable holiday list.

The tuition question: answer it before anyone asks

If your rate is weekly or monthly, a week with a holiday in it costs the same as any other week. Parents can live with that once it's explained. What stings is finding out the week the bill arrives.

The honest explanation is also the simplest one: tuition pays for an enrolled spot, not for individual days. If your teachers get paid holidays, that payroll doesn't stop. Rent, insurance, and utilities don't pause for Thanksgiving either. Your annual rate was set knowing the closures were coming, so they're already priced in. Spread the same yearly total over only the days you're open and the bill wouldn't change.

Put that in writing in two places: your enrollment agreement, which families sign, and your handbook, which they actually read. One or two plain sentences is enough:

Tuition is charged for your child's enrolled spot, not per day of attendance. Our annual rate accounts for the holidays and closure days listed in this handbook, so tuition is not reduced for those days or for days your child is absent.

If you don't have that clause yet, the free enrollment agreement builder is a quick place to draft one. Rules about what you can charge, and how much notice you have to give, vary by state. Check your state's current licensing rules, and talk to a local attorney if a family disputes a charge.

If you serve subsidized families

Families who use a state child care subsidy are a separate case, because the state, not the parent, decides how closure and absence days get paid. Those rules just moved. A 2024 federal rule required states to pay providers based on enrollment rather than attendance. A federal rule finalized in May 2026 rolled that requirement back. States still have to keep a child's occasional absences, holidays included, from cutting into provider payments, but they can now choose how. They can pay by enrollment, pay in full if a child attends at least 85% of authorized time, pay in full if a child misses five or fewer days in a month, or use another approach in the state's plan. Before you write the subsidy paragraph of your policy, read your state agency's current provider payment rules. Don't rely on what was true last year.

When to tell families

Think of it as three touchpoints, not one announcement:

1. The full-year calendar, once. Hand it out at enrollment and send it again each fall. This is the document families stick on the fridge.
2. A reminder about four weeks out. For Thanksgiving 2026 (Thursday, November 26), that means the end of October. For a winter break, send it in early November, before families lock in travel. Four weeks gives working parents time to arrange backup care.
3. A one-line nudge the week before. “Reminder: we're closed Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving. See you Monday!” That's all it needs to say.

If a January tuition change is coming, send that letter on its own. Don't tuck it into a holiday reminder, where it reads like you were hoping nobody would notice. Our tuition increase letter guide covers the timing, which usually lands earlier than the holiday notices anyway.

A holiday closure letter you can copy

Keep it short. Dates first, the tuition line second, warmth last. Here's a version for the four-weeks-out reminder:

Subject: [Center Name] holiday closures: [Month] dates Dear Families, A heads-up so you can plan ahead: [Center Name] will be closed on the following days: - [Day, Date]: [Holiday] - [Day, Date]: [Holiday] We'll reopen at our regular time on [Day, Date]. As a reminder, tuition covers your child's enrolled spot and already accounts for our holiday closures, so your [weekly/monthly] tuition stays the same. The full closure calendar for the year is in the parent handbook and attached here. If you have questions, reply to this email or catch me at pickup. Thank you for sharing your little ones with us. We hope you have a restful holiday. Warmly, [Your Name] [Center Name]

If you send most messages through a parent app, use the subject line and the date list as the app message, and attach the full calendar.

Use the calendar for staff and January planning too

The same calendar protects your team. When teachers know the closure days in October, they can plan their own time off around them instead of all asking for the same week in December. If the days around a holiday are open but thinly attended, decide ahead of time how you'll staff them. The staff coverage calculator shows how many staff each shift needs under your state's ratios, based on the enrollment you expect. The thinking is the same as our summer staffing math, just on a shorter calendar.

And look past the break. Winter is when some families decide on changes: a move, a new job, a grandparent who can help. Some of those changes show up as January openings. A December check-in with the families on your waitlist means that when a spot opens, you're calling someone who still wants it. Our guide to cleaning up your waitlist explains how to run that check-in.

If that check-in is the part that never quite happens in December, it's the kind of thing Seedlist runs for you: automatic still-interested check-ins, so the list is current when January comes. It's $59 a month flat, with a 30-day free trial and no credit card to start.