Every December some version of the same problem shows up. A shop's website still says they're open on a day they're closed. A caterer's booking form doesn't mention that they stopped taking orders for Christmas two weeks ago. A contractor gets a dozen "are you open this week?" calls because nothing online says either way.
The holidays are when the most people look you up and when you have the least time to deal with it. So do the prep now, in one sitting, while it's still calm. Here's the checklist. It takes about two hours if your site is in reasonable shape.
Hours and Closures (20 minutes)
This is the one that generates the most confusion, so it goes first.
- Update your holiday hours on Google Business Profile. Google lets you set special hours for specific dates. Do Thanksgiving, the day after, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and any days you're closing early. It takes five minutes and stops the "are you open?" calls. My Google Business Profile guide covers where this lives.
- Update the hours on your website, wherever they appear: footer, contact page, homepage. If they're in three places, fix all three.
- Add a short notice if you're closing for more than a day: "Closed Dec 24–26. Back Monday the 29th." Put it near the top of the homepage, not buried on the contact page.
- Check your voicemail greeting and any auto-reply. They're part of your online presence whether you think of them that way or not.
Deadlines and Cutoffs (20 minutes)
If anything about your business has a "by this date" during the holidays, it needs to be on the site.
| If you... | Post this |
|---|---|
| Ship products | Last order date for delivery by Dec 24, by shipping method |
| Take bookings or catering orders | Last date you're accepting holiday orders |
| Do installations or repairs | Whether you're taking new jobs before the new year, and when you resume |
| Offer gift cards | Where to buy them, and that they're instant if they are |
| Run holiday promotions | Start and end dates, and what's included |
Put this on the homepage as a simple banner or notice. A visitor should not have to hunt for it or, worse, find out after they've placed an order.
The Things That Break Under Load (30 minutes)
More visitors means more chances for something small to fail. Check these yourself, on your phone:
- Fill out your contact form and confirm the message arrives. I've written about how often contact forms quietly fail, and December is not the month to discover yours has been going to spam.
- Tap the phone number on the mobile site. Does it dial?
- Place a test order or booking if you have either. All the way through. Watch for confusing steps or missing confirmations.
- Check the site speed on your phone, on cellular, not Wi-Fi. If it's sluggish now, it'll feel worse when someone is standing in a parking lot trying to decide whether to come in. There's a fix list in why your website feels slow.
- Make sure the SSL certificate isn't expiring in the next 60 days. Your host or registrar shows this. An expired certificate throws a full-screen warning at every visitor.
A Light Seasonal Touch (20 minutes)
You don't need to redesign anything. You do want the site to look alive.
- One seasonal photo or banner is plenty. Your storefront decorated, a holiday product, your team. Real photos, not clip art snowflakes.
- Update your Google Business Profile photos with a couple of current ones. Recent photos signal an active business.
- Write one post or update if you have somewhere to put it: holiday hours, gift ideas, a year-end thank-you. It gives you something to share on social and something for the AI answers to pick up.
- Pin your holiday info to the top of your Facebook or Instagram if customers use those to reach you.
For businesses in Modesto, Turlock, and across the Valley, the likeliest payoff is simply fewer confused phone calls. Everything else is a bonus.
The January To-Do (Put It on the Calendar Now)
The most common holiday website mistake isn't forgetting to add things. It's forgetting to take them down. A "Merry Christmas" banner in February makes the whole site look abandoned.
Set a reminder for the first week of January to:
- Remove holiday banners, notices, and promotions
- Restore regular hours on the site and on Google
- Take down any shipping cutoff messaging
- Swap the seasonal photo back
- Update the copyright year in the footer if it's hardcoded
Fifteen minutes. Do it while you're doing your books.
Two Hours Before the Rush
The holidays don't require a new website. They require the one you have to tell the truth: when you're open, what you're taking orders for, and how to reach you. Two hours now saves you a lot of December phone calls and a few lost orders you'd never have known about.
Block the time this week. And if you're looking at the checklist thinking "I don't actually know where to change half of this," that's a sign worth paying attention to before the season starts.
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