We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience, serve personalized ads or content, and analyze our traffic. By clicking "Accept All", you consent to our use of cookies.
Customize Consent Preferences
We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.
The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ...
Always Active
Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.
No cookies to display.
Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.
No cookies to display.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
No cookies to display.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
No cookies to display.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Is Presidents Day the most confusing holiday in the U.S.?
States seem to have as many names for it and ideas about whom to honor as there have been presidents. The federal government doesn’t even recognize Monday as Presidents Day. It’s officially Washington’s Birthday, honoring the first president and the original American yardstick for measuring greatness.
The holiday hasn’t been celebrated on Washington’s actual birthday of Feb. 22, or any other president’s birthday, for more than 50 years. Presidents Day became the popular name after the holiday was fixed to a Monday.
The result is a jumble, causing some people to yearn for the holiday to just celebrate Washington again.
“The concept of Presidents Day is a confusing mishmash of ideas,” Hunter Abell, a Republican state legislator from Washington state, said recently. “By celebrating all the presidents, I believe that we inadvertently celebrate none.”
Abell’s interest is more than academic: he wants his state to rename its Presidents Day holiday and made his remarks during a hearing on that proposal.
First in war, first in peace, first with a holiday
The federal holiday for Washington started in 1879, but the current date was fixed by law as of 1971.
States, of course, have been left to their own devices for decades. Thirty-four still use some form of Washington’s name in their laws, while 19 use some form of Presidents Day. A few use both, while California law goes with “the third Monday in February.”
Forty-seven states will celebrate a public holiday on Monday. Indiana and Georgia celebrate Washington by giving state workers the day after Christmas off.
Delaware has no holiday. In 2009, its lawmakers started giving state employees “two floating holidays” instead of honoring individual presidents or having a Presidents Day, according to the state archives.
What’s in a name? Plenty, some say
Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia wants to return to a federal holiday on his birthday. Its website says Washington’s character and accomplishments shouldn’t be “muddled” by a “vague” holiday.
