Much was made of how savvy holiday bookers could get 18 days off work in April using only nine days of annual leave.

Christmas this year is set to offer an even BETTER ratio for time off to days booked.

If you’re crafty enough and get in there before your colleagues, you can have a lovely 10 days away from the office over the festive period while only having to use up three days of your remaining holiday entitlement.

This is what we call a proper Christmas gift.

The way to do this is to make sure you book December 27, 28 and 29 off work.

If you do this, your last working day before Christmas will be December 22 and you won’t return until January 2 next year.

It’s all thanks to when the big dates from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day fall, with a little bit of help from the weekends.

News Shopper:

Photo: Getty Images

Here’s a handy breakdown of how the end of the year looks:

  • Friday, December 22: Your last day at work
  • Saturday, December 23
  • Sunday, December 24: Christmas Eve
  • Monday, December 25: Christmas Day
  • Tuesday, December 26: Boxing Day
  • Wednesday, December 27: Normal working day so book it off
  • Thursday, December 28: Normal working day so book it off
  • Friday, December 29: Normal working day so book it off
  • Saturday, December 30
  • Sunday, December 31: New Year’s Eve
  • Monday, January 1: New Year’s Day
  • Tuesday, January 2: Back to work again

So, you’d better get booking pretty quick before others sitting near you read this and get wise to the little holiday hack.

And we of course realise this sadly won’t apply to people who have to work weekends or bank holidays, or who can’t get time off over Christmas – you have our sympathy and respect.

To those others who have already blown their holiday allowance for this year and aren’t able to take advantage of this, that’s just too bad – we hope all those hot dog photos during the summer are worth it.