Feasible to get Thanksgiving and Christmas off as new RN?

Nurses General Nursing

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Hi all,

I'm excited about pursuing my career in nursing, but I am also worried about missing out on family gatherings due to having to work holidays :sniff:. I hear it alot, that nurses 'have' to work certain holidays or a certain number of holidays out of the year. Also, does that mean we only get, for example, Thanksgiving day off? What about the Friday thru Sunday after? Does that typically come as a package when you get that holiday off? And is it feasible to get both Thanksgiving and Christmas off as a new grad, if we work all the other holidays throughout the year?

Any info would be great!

ps. I am not a nurse yet, and none of the job postings for the hospitals I'm interested in post holiday schedule options. This is why I have no clue on how it works.

Specializes in LTC, rehab, medical review.

I am a new nurse and have to work Christmas. I have 4 children as well, and this is my son's first Christmas (he is 5 months.) I do have Christmas Eve off, however, so we are going to do our Christmas a day early (Santa is delivering presents for us a day early...isnt he nice;). It's something I knew was a possibility when I got into this career :)

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Specializes in M/S, MICU, CVICU, SICU, ER, Trauma, NICU.

When you become a nurse, find a department that you really want to work in and where their holidays work schedule/call/rotation is fair.

That's all you can ask.

Otherwise, if you feel you can't do it, then don't work in a hospital and look for an office nursing job instead.

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Specializes in cardiothoracic surgery.

Also, one thing that I should suggest is to try not to use the "kid card" to get a specific holiday off. I know that it's one of the main reasons nurses want a specific holiday off. However, people who don't have kids, or younger kids, may still have families/partners that they want to spend the holidays with, so they should have an equal chance of getting a specific day off as those who have kids.

Thank you for saying this! I know some people I work with that have kids complain they don't like working some of the holidays, especially Christmas. Well guess what, people without kids don't like working holidays either. If you don't want to work holidays, then work in a clinic or find a different career. I don't think you should be treated special on the holidays because you have kids, it is not fair to people without kids. There is a lot of trading shifts around the holidays on my unit, so I think for the most part everyone gets the holidays off they want by getting someone else to work for them. As for me, I work what holidays I am scheduled for and hope that we have low census around Christmas. Last year, I got Christmas and Christmas Eve off for low census.

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