If you put it into your bylaws that you will not meet on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, or Christmas (or provide alternate dates) you will not need dispensation. El Campo Lodge did this concerning the first Thursday in December (Grand Lodge) and the 4th of July, when it falls on a Thursday.
As to what business can be conducted in called meetings, consider the following:
Art. 234. Stated Meetings: Business Required At.
The following matters shall be attended to only at Stated Meetings:
Receiving and balloting upon petitions for degrees, advancement
and affiliation; receiving and voting on applications
for demits, certificates of good standing; removal of Lodge to
another location; receiving charges and complaints of Masonic
disciplinary violations; election of Officers, surrender of charters;
presentation of proposed by-laws and all amendments
thereof (except as authorized in Subdivision 4 of Art. 216);
reinstatement of membership and restoration of Masonic rights;
granting of life memberships; consolidation of Lodges; and approval
of accounts and other fiscal transactions, unless dispensation to
the contrary is granted; and all other matters required elsewhere
in these Laws to be transacted at Stated Meetings.
When, at a Stated Meeting, a Lodge has been closed, it cannot be reopened
as a Stated Meeting, although no one may have left the room.
(Revised 2007).
Art. 235. (273). Called Meetings: Business Permitted.
Called Meetings may be ordered by the Master of the Lodge, or
by the Senior Warden in his absence, or by the Junior Warden in
the absence of both, at any time not prohibited by law for any one
or more of the following purposes: to receive the Grand Master
or his Representative or other distinguished Mason; to confer
degrees on candidates previously elected; to examine and vote on
the proficiency of candidates; to install officers; to conduct funerals,
to receive and vote on adoption of by-laws under Subdivision 4
of Art. 216; to adopt by-laws and amendments thereto when duly
called for that purpose after reasonable notice given; to transact
any other business not required by law to be acted on at a Stated
Meeting.
The Secretary may be ordered to issue summons for such
meetings when the circumstances are deemed such as to warrant
it; such summons must be in writing and under the seal of the
Lodge.
