PUBS and restaurants will have been making agonising phone calls to families that their original Christmas plans will now need to be cancelled.

The latest announcement from Welsh Government has forced hospitality venues to close their doors until 2021 at least.

Earlier this week, venues were hit with the news that Wales would enter its highest form for coronavirus control when alert level three was not deemed strong enough.

It was confirmed that hospitality venues were going to have to stop serving customers on site from 6pm on Christmas Day.

However, Saturday’s announcement has pulled the rug out from underneath business owners that were forced to shut from Sunday, December 20, unless they could operate on a takeaway basis only.

Businesses took to social media pages to blanket the news as they began informing customers one-by-one of the news.

Addressing their customers, a spokesman for The Fat Boar – which has a site in both Mold and Wrexham – said: “We will be offer a pick up service on Xmas day for those who want us to.

“We will obviously be speaking to each booking to see what works best for each group.

“From tomorrow we will be offering a full takeaway service, for collection and delivery from noon. We will continue to run this service every day for the rest of December.

“You have all been so supportive and understanding with us as a business throughout this terrible time and for that we are hugely grateful.”

Others have had the support of loyal customers pledging to return for their Christmas meals in 2021 when things will hopefully be better.

Earlier this week, a spokesman for the Penyffordd Red Lion posted: “We have made the tough decision to remain closed for the remainder of 2020. This is absolute worst-case scenario that we have been desperately trying to avoid all year round - sadly, the latest restrictions are too much for us to fight.

“We have now made contact with all customers who had booked Christmas meals with us and thankfully the vast majority of them have put their faith in us and asked us to retain their Christmas deposits for them to redeem WHEN (not if!) we re-open next year.

“Gestures like this really do help us to start the rebuild process once again.”