'Tis the season to be jolly. That’s how it should be, of course. For busy parents, though, it can be the season to feel pulled in all directions and stressed.

There are visiting relatives to feed, presents to buy, not to mention your nanny’s Christmas leave to sort.

So, what’s the secret, Santa?! How do you keep your Christmas cheer intact? Find out as we take a look at ways you can make the holiday season easier on yourself.

Sprinkle Some Magic into Your Christmas

If you’ve ever managed a project, that experience is going to help you get better organised for Christmas. Always have a plan but be sure to add in a dusting of fun and a lot of kindness towards yourself. 

Lists are key. Spreadsheet at the ready? Start by entering all the tasks you need to tick off and create realistic deadlines for getting them done. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Gifts for the kids along with wrapping paper
• Booking your own time off if you’re working
• Decorations for the house and dining table
• Extra foodie treats for visitors to enjoy
• Drinks for the holiday season, alcoholic and non-alcoholic
• Leave over Christmas for your nanny
• A special “thank you” Christmas gift for your nanny
• Meal ideas, meal plans, recipes and ingredients
• Baking a Christmas cake if you are planning on feeding it regularly with brandy!

Buy Your Gifts Early!

Making an early start to see all your tasks through is going to help. This is especially true of the inevitable Christmas shopping for gifts. Leaving it too late raises the chances of getting into a panic. It also means you can end up buying a whole load of “stuff” that nobody really wants through sheer desperation.

Make the kids your top priority. Christmas is all about them. They need a lot of wrapped gifts to open on the big day itself. Depending on how organised you are, you can spread the whole gift-buying process over several months.

It’s a useful way to save money as you can make your purchases when you can get the best possible deal. It does depend on making time to check out sources and prices.

Try out this mantra for inspiration when buying presents for the children:

Something they want,

Something they need,

Something to wear,

Something to read

Finding a one-size fits all solution for adult gifts can also save you a lot of angst. Many of us are awash with gadgets, clothes and potions we'll never use. Instead of piling on more by buying gifts for the sake of it, try downsizing. Edible or drinkable gifts work well as, by nature, they have a “use by” date. 

Sort Out Nanny Issues Well in Advance

Clarity, managing expectations and careful advance planning are all going to be key when dealing with your nanny and the issues around Christmas holiday leave. Making sure your nanny gets the time off they’d like and ensuring this all fits with your plans is far more important than buying matching decorations for the tree.

It’s well worth sitting down with your nanny a few months beforehand, if possible, to work out what’s going to happen over the holiday season. It’s important that both you and your nanny understand the implications of “closing down” for Christmas and New Year if that's what you as the employer choose to do. 

Your nanny also needs to understand the process involved in how to request leave. As with most tricky but important aspects of working life, good communication is vital. If you can't answer a question that your nanny has about leave immediately, you must make every effort to gather the necessary information and get back to them.

Understanding Closedown Periods

Working parents may find the businesses that employ them "close down" over the holiday season. For them, this is a great opportunity to spend more time with the kids without the need for their nanny.

As an employer, you can make the Christmas holiday season a closedown period. You can then require your nanny to take annual leave during this time, provided you give them at least 14 days’ notice. The earlier you can arrange this, however, the better for all concerned. 

If your nanny has an entitlement to annual holidays, they must stop work. That’s even if they currently have a zero annual holidays balance but provided you adhered to the notice period. They must take as much of their annual holidays balance as is necessary to cover your closedown period. Payment for these annual holidays gets calculated in the same way as any other annual leave.

If your nanny doesn’t have sufficient leave left to cover the entire closedown period, there are options. As well as taking all the leave they do have, they can top that up by taking more leave in advance. Or, they may have to take some leave without pay. 

All this is open to negotiation. There are further dependencies connected to the length of time your nanny has been working for you. If it’s less than a year, you may have to pay them 8 per cent of their gross salary as of the closing date. 

Delegate Leave Administration to Pay the Nanny

It takes complex and time-consuming calculations to figure out leave issues accurately. Remember that your nanny gets a paid day off for public holidays if it’s an otherwise working day for them. That means a day that they would have worked had the day not been a public holiday.

Outsourcing your nanny payroll to a specialist like Pay The Nanny takes away the stress of dealing with leave and payments. We’ll keep track of the leave your nanny accrues and ensure that they get paid correctly for their leave. 

It’s one less task for you to worry about. It’s also one that’s very easy to get wrong if you’re not across all the latest government rules and regulations related to annual leave.

Another key benefit of using a payroll supplier is that your nanny knows that their leave is getting handled by payroll experts. This gives them reassurance that you're always going to adhere to their leave entitlement. 

Giving a Christmas Gift to Your Nanny

Nannies, like other employees, need to feel valued. Arguably, they deserve extra special treatment because they are caring for your most precious assets. It’s a point worth considering because knowing that your employer appreciates what you do can play into your motivation and level of performance.

Saying “thank you” to your nanny at the end of each working day, even by text if necessary, should be a given. Including them on your Christmas gift list is an added extra. It's a gesture that can generate plenty of goodwill for relatively little effort. 

Some parents struggle to come up with an appropriate gift to buy their nanny at Christmastime. It can feel like an awkward issue so we've come up with some suggestions.

How Much Should I Spend on My Nanny’s Christmas Gift?

So what should you give your nanny for Christmas? How much is too much, and what is too little? Giving this some thought can reap dividends because pitching the gift correctly can bring its own rewards in terms of your nanny’s confidence and willingness to cooperate professionally.

A typical figure to spend on a gift for a full-time nanny at Christmas would be between 1 and 2 weeks’ net salary. That is though simply a useful rule of thumb. There may be dependencies related to performance, length of service and your financial means. 

What you actually choose to give your nanny is to a large extent going to depend on how well you know them. Make sure that your decision gets based on their interests or personal circumstances and not what you think would make a nice gift. Your gift should always be about the receiver.

Cash or Vouchers May Be the Best Option

These may sound unimaginative, but to a nanny, they can be game-changers. This is especially true during the holiday season when their own expenses are likely to be higher. You could combine these with something small and more personal. 

It’s really up to you to probe a bit in order to find out your nanny’s tastes and preferences. Are they foodies who’d appreciate a restaurant voucher, for example, or would they enjoy a health spa treat? 

Gift vouchers can be very useful but need to be for something that your nanny would actually use. If you’re unsure, let them choose. It makes far more sense than buying yet another body lotion or cream. 

Getting Christmas Sorted and Early!

Christmas is a time when stress levels can go through the roof. One more extra task can be enough to tip us over the edge. If you employ a nanny, there is a way to make life a little easier so that you can concentrate on creating happy family memories.

That's by outsourcing your nanny payroll to a third party.

Pay The Nanny can take the weight off your shoulders by sorting out all your nanny payroll needs. Annual leave and correct holiday payments are best left to the experts. Get in touch with us now to sort leave over Christmas for nannies in an instant.