Holiday-Season Childcare in BC: New Year's Eve, Office Parties and the Two-Week Winter Break

December puts three different childcare problems into the same few weeks: an evening out that runs past midnight, a work party that starts when the office closes, and two weeks when the schools are shut but most workplaces are not. They are booked the same way, but they are priced by different parts of the clock, so it is worth knowing which one you are looking at.

The short version first: there is no holiday surcharge. Puffin's rates are the same on December 31 as on any other evening. What changes the price on the busiest night of the year is not the date. It is the time.

New Year's Eve: the 10 PM line

In-home childcare is $32/hr for children 12 months and over, and $38/hr if a child under 12 months is present. From 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM those become the overnight rates: $36/hr and $42/hr. On most evenings nobody notices, because most evenings end before ten. New Year's Eve does not.

A 7:00 PM to 1:00 AM booking with a four-year-old is $204: three hours before ten at the daytime rate, and three after it at the overnight rate. With a baby under 12 months at home, the same evening is $240. Siblings do not change it. Every child in the home is included, so two children on that evening are also $204.

If you would rather not come home at all, a 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM sleepover is $416. At twelve hours the booking is covered by two caregivers working in sequence, so no hour bills at overtime. That produces a result most families don't expect: stopping at 6:00 AM (eleven hours) is $438, *more* than the twelve-hour booking, because hours nine to eleven are overtime for a single caregiver. How overtime works has the full rule.

A work party that starts at six

A holiday party that runs 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM is four hours at the daytime rate and one after ten: $164 with a child 12 months and over, $194 with a baby. The three-hour minimum rarely matters here. The detail that does is the end time: book to when you will actually be home, not to when the invitation says the party finishes.

If your company is hosting a family party, that is an event nanny booking rather than a babysitter, staffed at the venue. Event nannies are $40/hr per nanny with a four-hour minimum, and staffing follows the age mix: one nanny per four points, where a child three and over counts as one point, a toddler as one and a half, and a baby under 12 months as two. Twelve children aged three to ten need three nannies, so a four-hour party is $480. How many nannies do I need? walks through it.

The two-week winter break

BC schools close for about two weeks over Christmas and New Year, and your district's calendar has the exact dates. Most parents get a few days of that off, not all of it. A full weekday of care, 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, is $256, and a full five-day week is $1,280. Most families book the days around the ones they already have covered, not the whole fortnight.

Booking in December