When I was gainfully employed, I always worked for the three days between Christmas and New Year, because the building industry was closed (on the sites anyway), and as Business Development Dir, I'd sit with my MD for ages and we'd go through plans for the coming year, check out new diaries, poke around on new contacts, clock the potential sites for our clients etc., all without the blasted phone ringing and having to drive everywhere! Oh, and then we'd pop off to the pub to continue the discussion with all the others in our firm.
We got so much done then, we were all good friends, none of this 'better than thou' hierarchy in our firm, we had so much going for us if we got it right from January 1st!
And all that meant that I could spend three more days with my family when it mattered, which was during the Summer holidays!