Winter break camps for the days between the holidays
Schools close for two weeks, most parents don't. Which days to run, half days, staffing when your team wants time off, and pricing a short week, planned in November.
Nov 8, 2026 · 4 min read
Schools close for about two weeks around the holidays. Most parents get a few days off in there, but not all of them, and rarely the same ones. Every December, someone asks at your desk, "Are you open the week after Christmas?" and you hear yourself say, "Not this year."
A winter break camp is the answer to that question. It's short, it's indoors, it fills from families who already know you, and it runs on days your building would otherwise sit dark. The catch is that it has to be planned now, in November, before your team books their own time off and before families make other arrangements.
Which days to run
Start with the calendar and cross off what's not worth opening.
- December 25 and January 1 are statutory holidays across Canada and federal holidays in the United States. Close.
- December 26 is Boxing Day, a statutory holiday in some provinces and not in others. Check yours. In the US, it's an ordinary working day for most parents.
- December 24 and 31 are short days for many families. If you open, open in the morning only.
What's left is usually a handful of working days between the 26th and the 31st, and the days before school starts again in January. Those are the days parents need care most, because their own holiday leave rarely covers both weeks.
Look up when your local schools close and reopen. Boards and districts don't all match, and private schools often break earlier. Plan around the schools most of your families attend.
A simple shape for most studios and centres:
- Week one: the working days after Boxing Day, full days.
- Week two: the days before school reopens, if there are any.
- The 24th and 31st: a morning, or closed.
If you can only staff one stretch, choose the days after Boxing Day. That's when grandparents have gone home and parents are back at work.
Half days and single days
Winter break families want flexibility. Some need all of it, others need two days while one parent works.
- Sell the stretch, and the single days. A three-day camp from the 28th to the 30th, plus each day on its own, at a slightly higher daily price.
- Offer mornings for the youngest. Three- to five-year-olds are tired from the holidays, and a morning of crafts and games is plenty.
- Keep one group if you're small. Ages 5 to 10 together works for a short week, with activities that suit both ends of the range.
Staffing when your team wants the week off
This is the real constraint. Your instructors want the holidays too, and they deserve them.
- Ask in early November, before anyone has booked travel. "We're thinking of running camp December 28 to 30. Who'd like the hours?" Some staff want the extra pay in December.
- Hire home-for-the-holidays students. College and university students are back for most of December, looking for a few days of work. Former counsellors and older students are perfect.
- Pay a little more. $2 or $3 an hour above your usual camp rate for holiday-week shifts makes the question easy. Check your province's or state's rules on holiday pay for any day that's a statutory holiday.
- Plan for the smallest crew that's safe. Two adults on site at all times, one counsellor for every eight to ten campers above that, and someone you trust as the lead.
Pricing a short week
Price by the day, then round the stretch down a little.
Say your summer camp is $300 for five full days, or $60 a day. For a three-day winter camp:
- Three days: $180, the same $60 a day.
- A single day: $70.
- A morning, 9:00 to 12:00: $40.
Check it covers your costs. Two counsellors for 7 hours a day at $22 is $308 a day, or $924 for three days. Add $150 for supplies and snacks, and the three days cost $1,074 to run. At $180 a camper, you break even at six campers and turn a profit from seven. Twelve campers bring in $2,160.
Don't discount it to fill it. Families who need care that week are glad to find it, and a holiday camp isn't competing with a free week at home: it's competing with a parent's lost day of work.
What to do all day
Keep it indoors and calm. Winter break campers have had two weeks of sugar and screens.
- Winter crafts: paper snowflakes, pinecone bird feeders, salt-dough ornaments to take home.
- Your own thing, lightly: a short dance, a tumbling circuit, an hour of drawing with a real artist.
- A movie afternoon: blankets, popcorn, and a quiet hour for counsellors too.
- A building challenge: boxes, tape and a theme ("build a winter fort for six").
Keep themes about winter, not about one holiday. Your families celebrate different things, or nothing at all, and every child should feel the camp is for them.
A November timeline
- First week of November: pick the days, ask your team, set prices.
- Mid-November: tell your class families first, in person and in the holiday schedule email. See that email.
- Late November: open it to everyone else.
- December 15: decide whether each day runs. If one has two campers, offer them another day and close it.
Where Caletan fits
In Caletan, a winter break camp is registered like any other camp: choose its first day, and each weekday until its last is a camp day; tap one to leave it out, and a day the location is closed is left out on its own. A single day can be a camp of its own, and a camper who joins partway pays for the days left. The camps guide shows how, and there's more on Caletan's camp registration software.
