There's quite a bit to get to here. A lot more of context would be required to be able to offer good advice. For example - what are your systems looking like and why are they prone to cause issues during Christmas time?<p>Then it comes to several things like personalities in your team, how your manager is like, but I think for me if I had to give generic advice, I would try to develop a proposal that could solve the issue and then ask to be responsible for solving it.<p>So instead of framing it as complaining I would try to offer solutions as improvements, and what are the benefits to be gained.<p>If we can improve the reliability of our systems, we can focus more on building features, we can have stress-free on call periods etc. So I would first try to brainstorm myself what could solve the issue and then suggest those improvements.<p>Like try to frame it as an opportunity to improve in some area.