What is President’s Day?

What is President’s Day?

Today, President’s Day goes relatively unnoticed, unless you are a retail store looking to clearance out some of its last season items with a President’s Day Sale. But there is an actual reason why we do have a President’s Day though many of us don’t know how it came to be.

It is a day to honor all presidents but came to be as a way of honoring specifically George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Both born in February, the holiday was split between their birthdays. It was thought that the contribution that these great men brought to the country of United States and helped shaped it to what it is today needed to be commemorated in some way. Though this is a uniform federal holiday law, this is not uniform holiday title among individual states.   The term “Presidents’ Day” has become more of a marketing tool and a way to capitalize on a three day weekend retail sales. President’s Day is always celebrated on the third Monday in the month of February.

Though, not many people actively celebrate President’s Day there are some national parks that will stage reenactments and pageants in their honor. There are also National Park Service that features a number of historic sites and memorials that are dedicated to honoring these two presidents.

Are you looking for a way to celebrate President’s Day? Here are some ways you can commemorate this day on your own.

1. Make a dinner honoring George Washington. For the main dish, you can choose fish which was George Washington’s favorite dish. You can also bake a cherry pie in remembrance of the story about young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and telling the truth about it when his father asked.
2. Make a dinner honoring Abraham Lincoln. It isn’t quite known exactly what Lincoln’s favorite food was but following a Kentucky frontier menu is a great way to honor the late president. You can also make gingerbread men as it is said that Lincoln once gave up these favorite treats of his to a younger boy who was less fortunate than he was.
3. Do an Art Craft. You can take all the pennies you don’t use who feature Abraham Lincoln and paste them into the letter P. You can also build a “log cabin” out of popsicle sticks in remembrance of Lincoln’s log cabin. Another fun activity is doing coin sorting. This way your kids can look at the United States president’s faces and get familiar with what they look like!