The week before Christmas turns even a tidy office into a blur of out-of-office replies and half-finished handovers. A clear closure memo settles the questions people ask every December: when do we finish, who is covering what, and what happens if something goes wrong while almost everyone is away.
Get it right and you spend the break not answering messages. Get it wrong and someone spends Boxing Day hunting for a password.
What the memo must do
A Christmas closure memo is not an announcement for its own sake. It is a working document that tells people three things: the exact dates the office is shut, who is responsible for what during that time, and what is expected of them when they come back.
That means it has to be specific. "The office will be closed over the festive period" tells nobody anything. "The office closes at 5.30pm on Friday 20 December and reopens at 9am on Thursday 2 January" lets people book travel, plan childcare and set their own out-of-office messages with confidence.
It also has to be honest about gaps. If nobody is monitoring the main phone line, say so. Staff would rather know than discover it on 27 December.
What to include
Most closure memos need the same handful of elements. Adapt the list below to your organisation, then use it as a checklist each year.
- Closure dates and times — the last working day, the exact closing time, and the date and time you reopen.
- Cover arrangements — who is on call, on which days, and what they are expected to handle.
- Customer-facing cover — whether the phone line, inbox or reception is monitored, and by whom.
- Emergency contacts — a short list of people to reach for urgent building, IT or client issues.
- Access and security — alarm codes, building access, who holds keys, and any reception changes over the break.
- Deadlines before the break — invoices, approvals or orders that must be completed on or before the final day.
- Return-to-work details — the reopening date and anything staff should do on their first morning back.
Keep it to one page. If it runs longer, you are probably including information that belongs in a separate handover document.
A template you can adapt
Subject: Christmas closure — dates, cover and emergency contacts
Dear all,
Please note our Christmas closure arrangements.
Closed: from 5.30pm on Friday 20 December to 9am on Thursday 2 January. The office, main phone line and enquiries inbox will not be monitored during this period.
Cover: [Name] is on call from 23 to 27 December and [Name] from 30 December to 1 January. They will check the urgent enquiries inbox each morning and can authorise emergency spend up to [amount].
Emergencies: For building or security issues, call [number]. For IT outages affecting client systems, call [number]. Please do not use personal mobile numbers unless the person has agreed to it in advance.
Before you finish: complete your handover note in [location], set your out-of-office reply, and clear any approvals due before 2 January.
Return to work: the office reopens at 9am on Thursday 2 January. Please spend the first hour on enquiries received during the closure and join the team catch-up at 10am.
Thank you for your work this year. Enjoy the break.
Writing tips that make it easy to read
Lead with the dates. Put the closure period in the first two lines and again in the subject line. Everything else is secondary.
Give the weekday as well as the date. "Friday 20 December" removes the small doubt that "20 December" creates when someone is reading quickly on a phone.
Use bold labels, not long paragraphs. Closed, Cover, Emergencies, Return. Readers scan; a label tells them in half a second whether this section applies to them.
Tell people what to do, not just what is happening. "Set your out-of-office reply before you leave, including the reopening date" is an instruction. "The office will be closed" is background.
Keep the tone warm but plain. A short thank-you at the end is welcome. Two paragraphs of festive goodwill before the dates are not.
Cover, contacts and handovers
Build the rota around named people
A rota that says "someone from the team will be available" is not a rota. Name individuals, give their dates and set a realistic scope: check the urgent inbox once a day, respond to client escalations, forward anything else to the new year.
Watch for single points of failure. If one person holds the only knowledge of a client account or a supplier contact, ask them to write it down before they leave.
Hand over in writing
Ask everyone with live work to leave a short handover note covering open tasks, current status, key contacts and anything that cannot wait. Store these in one agreed place — a shared folder, a pinned post, an intranet page — and tell people where to find them in the memo itself.
Handle contact details carefully
Sharing personal mobile numbers across a wide distribution list can raise data protection concerns. Ask each person for permission before adding their number, and use work mobiles or agreed on-call lines wherever possible. If in doubt, check with whoever handles data protection in your organisation.
Return-to-work details
Most memos stop at the closure date. That is a missed opportunity. The first morning back is usually the busiest of the month, and a few lines about expectations make it calmer.
State the reopening time, then set out what you would like people to prioritise: clear the inbox, check the urgent queue, confirm any bookings or deliveries. If there is a team meeting on the first day, put the time in the memo so nobody schedules something else over it.
You can also flag anything that needs attention before the break ends — approving a payment, submitting timesheets, confirming a January delivery. A single line now saves a chase later.
Send it early, then send it again
Draft the memo in the first week of December, check the dates against your calendar and the published bank holidays, and have someone else read it for anything ambiguous. Aim to send it two to three weeks before the closure so people can plan.
Then send a short reminder in the final week. Same dates, same cover names, same emergency numbers, two or three lines. Pin both versions somewhere permanent — an intranet page or a shared folder — so someone who joins mid-December is not left guessing.
Finally, keep the file. Next year's memo is twenty minutes of editing rather than an hour of rewriting, and the rota names and contact numbers will already be in the right places.
Photo: Pavel Danilyuk / Pexels
