Wednesday holidays

Yesterday was a holiday - Independence Day in our country. Yesterday was a Wednesday. So, this week, we worked Monday and Tuesday, got Wednesday off and will be working on Thursday and Friday. I thought I was not going to like that but it turns out, I've completely changed my mind about it. It's a good thing I'm not a politician. I would be accused of flip-flopping. That's a subject I'd like to take up another time but for now, I want to extol the virtues of the Wednesday Holiday.

Tuesday this week was like a Friday because we were getting the next day off. And now, tomorrow (the real Friday) will seem like Friday, too! Where else can you get the Friday Feeling within three days of each other? Another good thing about it was that I knew I only had one day off so I couldn't push things off until the next day. I used to do this in school where I would be feverishly working on things late Sunday night that I should have done on Saturday (or even Friday). I'm the same way now. As you can see from this old post titled "That's why God made tomorrow". As I said in that post,

I don't mean it as a way to justify procrastination. I don't need any help in that!

Not having another day off forced me to get a lot of small jobs done that I might not have done otherwise. And now, here it is Thursday and there are only two days to work until the week-end. I've liked this so much, I'm going to go out on a limb and say we should move all of the so-called Monday Holidays and make them Wednesday Holidays.

Back in 1971, the holidays of Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day were moved to Monday and since then, Martin Luther King Day was added to the list. You can read more about this on Wikipedia in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act article. I think it's ridiculous that these holidays were moved from their meaningful dates (I mean, come on, was George Washington born on February 22 or not?) to something made up so we could have a longer weekend. But since we've already done that, let's make it a better day that doesn't encourage procrastination and gives us that double Friday Feel. I know that everyone is just like me and puts things off on three-day weekends.

So, since we've established the fact that everyone is just like me (there's a logical leap for you), then everyone should like the change to all Wednesday holidays. As matter of fact, I think we should expand the list! We should always celebrate Independence Day on the closest Wednesday to July 4. The Continental Congress did a lot of work before and after the fourth of July. They voted for independence on July 2 (John Adams thought that's when the country would celebrate independence in the future) and the first public reading of the document wasn't until July 8. And why Thursday for Thanksgiving? Is it the alliteration that got them to do it? Probably. And since we're pretty sure Jesus wasn't really born on December 25 (due to the shepherds being in the fields at the time and that wouldn't happen in winter), why not make that a Wednesday holiday as well? How about Labor Day? Why should that always be on a Monday? I think the only holiday we'd have to leave alone is New Year's Day. But give me a little time. Maybe I could could up with an argument for moving that, too.