Reason clock stops working in American's holidays (6,6)

I believe the answer is:

spring breaks

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'holidays' is the definition.
(I know that spring break is a type of holidays)

'reason clock stops working in american's' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'stops' could be 'breaks' ('break' can be a synonym of 'stop') and 'breaks' is present in the answer.
'in' is within the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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