По праздникам нам дома хорошо работается, потому что телефон почти не звонит.

Праздникам is in the dative plural. The pattern is:

• праздник (singular, nominative)
• праздники (plural, nominative)
• праздникам (plural, dative)

With time expressions, по + dative plural often means “on X (regularly / habitually)”:

• по утрам – in the mornings (on mornings, as a rule)
• по вечерам – in the evenings
• по выходным – on weekends
• по праздникам – on holidays (whenever it’s a holiday, as a rule)

So here по doesn’t mean “along” or “according to” (its other common meanings), but “on (every / usually on) [these days]” in a repeated, habitual sense.

All three can be heard, but they’re not fully interchangeable in feel:

• по праздникам
  Most idiomatic here. Emphasises a regular pattern: Whenever it’s a holiday, that’s how it usually is.

• в праздники
  Literally “in/at holidays”. Can also mean “on holidays”, but it sounds a bit more like talking about the time period of holidays in general, not so strongly about a habitual rule.
  In your sentence it’s possible, but по праздникам sounds more natural.

• на праздники
  Often used with verbs of movement or planning about the holiday period:

  • уехать на праздники – to go away for the holidays
  • приехать на праздники – to come (home) for the holidays

  As a simple time adverbial like in your sentence, на праздники is less typical; it more often implies “for the duration of the holidays” rather than “every holiday, as a rule”.

So the original по праздникам is the best for “on holidays (as a recurring situation)” in this sentence.

Нам is the dative case and it marks the experiencer in an impersonal construction.

Russian often uses the pattern:

кому + (не) + глагол-ся

to mean “someone finds it easy / hard / possible to do something” or “it (doesn’t) feel like doing something”:

• Мне сегодня хорошо работается. – It’s easy for me to work today. / I’m working well today.
• Ему не спится. – He can’t sleep. / He doesn’t feel like sleeping.
• Им не сидится дома. – They can’t sit still at home; they don’t feel like staying home.

There is no explicit subject like “it” in Russian. The verb is in 3rd person singular, reflexive (-ся), and the dative pronoun (мне, тебе, нам…) tells you who experiences this state.

So:

• Нам дома хорошо работается ≈ “It works well for us at home” / “We find it easy to work at home”.

If you used мы, you’d need a normal personal verb:

• Мы хорошо работаем дома. – We work well at home.

That is a different structure, without the special impersonal nuance.

Работается is работать + -ся, but here it is not a passive in the English sense. It’s an impersonal reflexive form that describes how easily / naturally / comfortably the work goes for someone.

Compare:

• работать – to work
• работается (кому) – (for someone) it “works”, it is going well/badly in terms of working

Examples:

• Мне сегодня совсем не работается. – I just can’t get any work done today.
• В деревне ему хорошо работалось. – In the village he worked easily/comfortably; it was easy for him to work there.
• Здесь читается с трудом. – It’s hard to read here (e.g. because of bad light).

So работается is about the process feeling: how it goes, whether it’s pleasant, easy, possible. It is closer to English paraphrases like:

• “I can work well…”
• “I get a lot of work done…”
• “It’s easy to work…”

than to a simple passive like “is being worked”.

Both involve “we” and “working well at home”, but the focus and nuance differ:

• Мы хорошо работаем дома.
  A straightforward factual statement: When we work at home, we do a good job / we are effective.
  Focus is on our performance.

• Нам дома хорошо работается.
  Talks more about how it feels, how easy / comfortable it is to work at home.
  Implied: the conditions are good; work goes smoothly and naturally for us.

A rough feel in English:

• Мы хорошо работаем дома. – “We work well at home.”
• Нам дома хорошо работается. – “We can really get work done at home.” / “It’s easy/pleasant for us to work at home.”

In your sentence, this fits perfectly with the reason clause потому что телефон почти не звонит: the quiet conditions are what make it хорошо работается.

Дома (with stress on the first syllable: до́ма) is an adverb meaning “at home”.

Contrast:

• дома / до́ма – at home
• дом – (a) house, (a) home (noun)
• в доме – in the house / inside the building
• домá (stress on the last syllable) – houses (plural), or “of the house(s)” depending on context

So:

• Нам дома хорошо работается. – We work well at home. (home as a place where we live)
• Нам в доме хорошо работается. – We work well in the house/building. (slightly more neutral/physical: inside that building)

In everyday speech, до́ма is the default for “at home”.

Russian word order is quite flexible, especially in spoken style. All of these are grammatically possible:

• По праздникам нам дома хорошо работается.
• Нам дома хорошо работается по праздникам.
• Дома нам по праздникам хорошо работается.

The basic “neutral” structure is what you see in the original: time phrase at the start (по праздникам) and the reason clause after the comma. Starting with по праздникам highlights when this is true.

Moving pieces around can change emphasis slightly, but the core meaning stays the same. You generally wouldn’t break up нам дома хорошо работается in a strange way (e.g. inserting another phrase inside it mid-stream) because that would sound unnatural or overly marked.

Звонить actually has two main patterns:

1. Intransitive, “to ring” – the subject is the thing that makes the sound:

   • Телефон звонит. – The phone is ringing.
   • Будильник звонит. – The alarm clock is ringing.
   • Звонит в дверь. – The doorbell is ringing.

   That’s exactly your sentence: телефон почти не звонит – “the phone hardly ever rings”.

2. With a dative object, “to call someone (by phone)”:

   • Он звонит мне каждый день. – He calls me every day.
   • Я позвоню тебе вечером. – I’ll call you in the evening.

So звонить can mean either “to ring (make a ringing sound)” or “to call (someone)”. In your sentence it’s the first meaning, with телефон as the subject.

Почти не literally means “almost not”, so here:

• телефон почти не звонит ≈ “the phone almost doesn’t ring (at all)”
  → very close to “hardly ever rings / almost never rings”

Contrast with:

• телефон редко звонит – “the phone rarely/seldom rings”

The difference in feel:

• почти не звонит – stronger, suggests the phone almost never rings; there are very few occasions.
• редко звонит – still infrequent, but sounds a little less extreme, more neutral “seldom”.

Also, note the position: почти comes right before не and they work as a unit:

• ✅ телефон почти не звонит
• ❌ телефон не почти звонит – incorrect / unnatural

So почти не softens the absolute negative не into “almost not / hardly”.

Russian uses the present tense for:

1. Things happening right now

   • Он сейчас работает. – He is working now.

2. General truths / regular, repeated actions

   • Я по вечерам читаю. – I read in the evenings. (habitually)
   • По выходным мы гуляем в парке. – On weekends we walk in the park.

Your sentence is case (2). По праздникам нам дома хорошо работается describes a regular pattern: whenever it’s a holiday, that’s how things typically are.

English also often uses a “present simple” for habits (“On Sundays I sleep late”), so the tense usage actually lines up here.

Yes, this is a very productive pattern. Some very common ones:

• Мне не спится. – I can’t sleep; I don’t feel like sleeping.
• Ему хорошо живётся в деревне. – He lives well in the countryside; life is easy/pleasant there.
• Здесь легко дышится. – It’s easy to breathe here.
• Тебе сегодня не учится, да? – You don’t feel like studying today, huh?
• Им не сидится дома. – They can’t sit still at home; they don’t want to stay home.

Structure:

кому + (наречие) + глагол-ся

It usually conveys:

• the subjectless state of doing something,
• how easy/pleasant/possible it is,
• often with an emotional or “mood” component (you feel like it / you don’t).

Нам дома хорошо работается fits exactly this pattern: “For us, at home, working goes well / is easy / is pleasant.”