The week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve has never had an official name, but everyone who has lived through it knows the feeling: the presents are opened, the big lunch is over, nobody quite knows what day it is, and the whole country seems to collectively down tools until 2 January. “Twixmas” is the word that’s stuck for it, and for a group that would rather spend those strange, static days together than scattered across separate front rooms, it’s quietly one of the best weeks of the year to book a house.
What Twixmas actually is, and why groups love it
Nobody works properly between 27 and 30 December — plenty of offices close outright, and the ones that don’t tend to run on skeleton staff and low expectations. That makes it one of the rare stretches where an entire extended family or friend group can plausibly all take the same days off without using much annual leave, since so many workplaces treat the week as a write-off anyway. A group house during Twixmas turns those in-between days — usually spent half-watching television and eating leftovers alone — into a proper second gathering, without competing with the main Christmas Day plans everyone already has.
Why it’s better value than the fortnight either side
Christmas week itself and New Year’s Eve are both peak demand, and prices reflect it. The days between them are a genuine dip in an otherwise packed season. PASC UK, the trade body for the self-catering sector, put average UK self-catering occupancy at around 42% across 2024 — a reminder that even in a supposedly busy season, a great many self-catering properties sit unbooked on any given week, and Twixmas is one of the weeks where that shows most. It won’t be as cheap as a random Tuesday in February, but it’s reliably calmer and better value than either the week before or the week after.
Who this suits best
Twixmas works particularly well for extended families who don’t all gather on Christmas Day itself — in-laws with their own Christmas Day traditions, siblings who alternate hosting, or a family split across the country who’d rather have one proper few days together than a rushed Boxing Day visit. It also suits friend groups who want a lower-key alternative to New Year’s Eve itself: all the togetherness of a group house without the pressure of organising a midnight countdown. Our Christmas and New Year group houses guide covers the wider seasonal picture if your group is still deciding which part of the season to book.
What to check before you book a Twixmas week
Confirm the exact check-in and check-out dates against the owner’s Christmas and New Year turnaround — many owners run back-to-back festive bookings with a tight changeover, so a Twixmas stay might be a fixed block (27–30 December, say) rather than flexible dates either side. Ask whether the property comes with heating included or metered separately, since a big old house can be expensive to heat through a cold week if it’s not factored into the price, and confirm whether decorations are left up from the owner’s own Christmas or if you’re arriving to a plain house. Our midweek group stays guide has more on getting good value from a quieter-season booking generally.
Building the days
Twixmas doesn’t need a packed itinerary — the appeal is largely in not having one. A bracing group walk most mornings, an afternoon board game or two, a fire lit early because it gets dark by four, and meals that lean on Christmas leftovers rather than a fresh weekly shop all suit the mood of the week. If the group wants one proper anchor for the days, a relaxed private chef dinner partway through the stay works well without anyone facing a full Christmas-dinner-scale cook again so soon after the last one.
The short version
Twixmas sits in a genuine value dip between two of the most expensive weeks of the year, and it’s one of the few stretches where a whole extended group can plausibly get the same days off. Confirm the exact dates and heating costs before you book, since festive turnarounds are often tighter than a normal weekend, and keep the days themselves unstructured — that’s the actual point of the week. Because every enquiry goes straight to the owner, ask about the specific festive changeover dates directly rather than assuming standard weekend timings apply.
