A holiday call schedule that rotates by itself.
Type the names, tick the holidays your group covers, and pick a starting year. Every holiday moves one name along the list each year, so nobody takes the same holiday twice until everyone has had it once.
It runs in your browser. The names you type are not sent anywhere and are not saved. Close the tab and they are gone.
Build the rotation
One name per line, 2 to 12. Order matters: the first name takes the first holiday in the first year. Put people in the order that makes the first year match what your group already agreed.
A full cycle is one year per person. It is filled in for you until you change it.
Holidays per person
How the rotation works
- List the holidays in calendar order and the people in a fixed order.
- Year one: the first person takes the first holiday, the second person the second, and so on. When you run out of people, start the list again.
- Every year after: each holiday moves one name along the list. Whoever had Thanksgiving this year hands it to their neighbor on the list next year, and the same neighbor every time.
- After one year per person, everyone has had every holiday exactly once and the totals are equal. Then it repeats.
Within a single year the holidays are also spread evenly: no one has more than one above anyone else, counting a tied pair such as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as one. The page picks the direction of the rotation (down the list or up it) so that, when it can, nobody takes Christmas and then New Year’s Day a week later.
Worked tables for groups of 3 to 6
These use the seven holidays most groups start with. The last row shows how many holidays each person has that year. Use them as they are, or put your own names into the tool above.
3 people, 3-year cycle
| Holiday | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Year’s Day | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C |
| MLK Jr. Day | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. A |
| Memorial Day | Dr. C | Dr. A | Dr. B |
| Independence Day | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C |
| Labor Day | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. A |
| Thanksgiving | Dr. C | Dr. A | Dr. B |
| Christmas Day | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C |
| Holidays each year | A 3, B 2, C 2 | A 2, B 3, C 2 | A 2, B 2, C 3 |
4 people, 4-year cycle
| Holiday | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Year’s Day | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. D |
| MLK Jr. Day | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. D | Dr. A |
| Memorial Day | Dr. C | Dr. D | Dr. A | Dr. B |
| Independence Day | Dr. D | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C |
| Labor Day | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. D |
| Thanksgiving | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. D | Dr. A |
| Christmas Day | Dr. C | Dr. D | Dr. A | Dr. B |
| Holidays each year | A 2, B 2, C 2, D 1 | A 1, B 2, C 2, D 2 | A 2, B 1, C 2, D 2 | A 2, B 2, C 1, D 2 |
5 people, 5-year cycle
| Holiday | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 | 2031 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Year’s Day | Dr. A | Dr. E | Dr. D | Dr. C | Dr. B |
| MLK Jr. Day | Dr. B | Dr. A | Dr. E | Dr. D | Dr. C |
| Memorial Day | Dr. C | Dr. B | Dr. A | Dr. E | Dr. D |
| Independence Day | Dr. D | Dr. C | Dr. B | Dr. A | Dr. E |
| Labor Day | Dr. E | Dr. D | Dr. C | Dr. B | Dr. A |
| Thanksgiving | Dr. A | Dr. E | Dr. D | Dr. C | Dr. B |
| Christmas Day | Dr. B | Dr. A | Dr. E | Dr. D | Dr. C |
| Holidays each year | A 2, B 2, C 1, D 1, E 1 | A 2, B 1, C 1, D 1, E 2 | A 1, B 1, C 1, D 2, E 2 | A 1, B 1, C 2, D 2, E 1 | A 1, B 2, C 2, D 1, E 1 |
6 people, 6-year cycle
| Holiday | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 | 2031 | 2032 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Year’s Day | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. D | Dr. E | Dr. F |
| MLK Jr. Day | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. D | Dr. E | Dr. F | Dr. A |
| Memorial Day | Dr. C | Dr. D | Dr. E | Dr. F | Dr. A | Dr. B |
| Independence Day | Dr. D | Dr. E | Dr. F | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C |
| Labor Day | Dr. E | Dr. F | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. D |
| Thanksgiving | Dr. F | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. D | Dr. E |
| Christmas Day | Dr. A | Dr. B | Dr. C | Dr. D | Dr. E | Dr. F |
| Holidays each year | A 2, B 1, C 1, D 1, E 1, F 1 | A 1, B 2, C 1, D 1, E 1, F 1 | A 1, B 1, C 2, D 1, E 1, F 1 | A 1, B 1, C 1, D 2, E 1, F 1 | A 1, B 1, C 1, D 1, E 2, F 1 | A 1, B 1, C 1, D 1, E 1, F 2 |
With more holidays than people, some people take two or three in a year. With fewer holidays than people, some take none that year and the rotation brings them back in. Either way the cycle evens it out.
What it does not do
- It treats every holiday as equal. Christmas Day and Labor Day each count as one. If your group weighs them differently, run the tool twice: once with only the major holidays ticked and once with the rest, and keep the two rotations side by side.
- It does not know your history. It starts from the year you pick. If someone already worked Christmas two years running, put the names in an order that fixes that, or swap by hand.
- It uses the holiday’s own date. July 4 stays on July 4 even when it falls on a Saturday. If your group covers the observed weekday instead, note it yourself.
- One person per holiday. No backup call and no split shifts.
- US holidays only. Fourteen are listed; seven start ticked.
Questions
Who should be first on the list?
Whoever your group agrees takes New Year’s Day in the starting year. Many groups draw names once and then never again, because the rotation takes over from there.
What happens when someone joins or leaves?
Rebuild from that year. Put the new person in the place of the one who left and the rest of the order stays as it was. If the group grows, add the new name at the end; the cycle becomes one year longer.
Should the holiday person also take the weekend next to it?
That is a group decision, and many groups do keep a Monday holiday with its weekend. This page only assigns the holidays. The call schedule generator builds a whole month and can keep a holiday with the weekend beside it.
Can I get this as a spreadsheet?
Yes. Build the rotation and press Download for Excel. The file has the rotation with each year’s dates and a count per person. If you want a calendar that counts weekdays and weekends as well, use the free on-call schedule template.
When the holidays are only part of the problem
Callwell builds the whole call schedule from your group’s rules: who is in the pool, which holidays you observe, weekend and holiday blocks first, then the weekdays, with the counts carried across the year. It is free for up to 3 people in the call pool, and on that plan you place the days yourself. Auto-Build is Pro: $299/year or $29.99/month for the whole group, not per person. The annual plan includes a 3-month trial. The monthly plan does not. Viewers are free. iPhone and iPad. It stores no patient information.
Callwell is in App Store review. Until it is released, the web version is invite-only.
See how Callwell works Build a month for freeComparing tools: Callwell and Amion, Callwell and QGenda.