Vacation For The Nation (Part 5)

American patriots, circa 2044, celebrating President Quimby’s new autumn holidays.

This is Part 5 of the ongoing series “Vacation For The Nation.” Read: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, & Part 4

Welcome back to my series, Vacation For The Nation! As a reminder this is my very real and totally non-farcical campaign to become the 52nd President of the United States of America. In Part 1, I stated the overarching goal of my plan for our country. In Part 2, I audited the first quarter of the year and was forced to explain a few pieces of legislation no one cares about. In Part 3, I audited the spring months (April - June) and went to battle with the moon. In Part 4, I audited the holiday desert also known as summer (July - September). In Part 5, we will continue to determine how to create a permanent four-day work week, now for the fall months (October - December) which are traditionally packed with festivities. The key here is to add moments to breath and unwind in between all of the chaos rather than compounding the stress.

Booooo! The taunting kind not the spooky kind.

Hey, welcome to October, and first of all, Christopher Columbus was a grade-A douche bag that shouldn’t be celebrated at all. Further reading: 9 Reasons Christopher Columbus Was A Murderer, Tyrant, And Scoundrel. The only argument I’ve heard in favor of Columbus Day is to celebrate Italian-American heritage, and like, come on, there’s got to be a better way. More on that in a minute, because first off we need a new holiday the week before, but I needed to unload a bit of that Columbus rage right off the jump.

October 5th is Teachers Day! This was established globally by UNESCO as “a chance to appreciate educators, address challenges, and promote better standards for teaching worldwide.” Most of us can think back to a teacher that was our favorite, my mom was a teacher, and they deserve a day of recognition for the hard work of molding minds. Please thank a teacher on October 5th!

Back to the show, the Columbus-hating show. US politicians have been playing football with the date, changing it to Indigenous Peoples Day and changing it back to Columbus Day. I plant my flag firmly in the Indigenous Peoples Day camp. Though, we’re going to turn this into a bit of a conglomeration that celebrates all of the things not named Christopher Columbus. World Mental Health Day is October 10th, which in the 2026 calendar, is observed at the same time as Indigenous Peoples Day. To appease the Italian-American crowd, it’s now also going to be Enrico Fermi day. A Nobel Prize winning Italian-American physicist who worked on the atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project. So, for 2026, Happy World Mental Health/Indigenous Peoples/Enrico Fermi Atomic Bomb Day! Literal boom. Roasted! Please don’t talk to me about Christopher Columbus ever again.

In 1987, the lord and savior of the Republican Party - Ronald Reagan, proclaimed October 28th as National Immigrants Day. A great idea but much too close to Halloween. We’re moving this up ten days to October 18th. It now slots in nicely a week after Indigenous Peoples Day. So we’re celebrating the people who were here first, first, and then everyone else who have emigrated to take part in the great American experiment second. For the Italian-Americans who may feel ostracized by Columbus or Fermi Day (which was kind of a joke but kind of legit), here’s another opportunity to represent your homeland. Immigrants have continuously been the backbone of this country, let’s never forget that.

This next one is a bit of a gamble as it may not always line up perfectly. October 25th is Sports Day. Around this date every year it’s considered to be the Sports Equinox as the four major sports leagues in the US will often have at least one game scheduled - MLB (World Series), NFL, NHL, and NBA. For the NFL to be included this will need to always fall on a Sunday or Monday. Also, the MLB World Series will need to actually go this late into the month and have a game scheduled rather than it being a travel day. Both the NHL and NBA are highly likely to always have a game. This will sometimes not align, but that’s okay, that’s life. Use the new holiday to watch sports, participate in sports, try a new sport, heck even esports. If you’re not into sports at all, I’m not sure what else to say, just move your body or start an armchair debate about whether or not something is actually a sport or just an activity as people love to do for some reason even though it doesn’t actually matter at all.

October will obviously end by finally enshrining Halloween as a federal holiday. Everyone deserves the full day off for some “trick or treat, smell my feet” hijinx. Come on, have some fun, get a costume, decorate your house, and get a bowl of candy ready for the neighborhood kids. You’re never too old for Halloween!

Why was I so mad at old October? This feels so much better.

Kicking off November with two holidays in place is already a better start than most other months.

November 2026, specifically, is a little interesting as per my original rule of Monday holiday observances, Halloween falls to November 2nd. To complicate matters further, I’m going to shoehorn in Day of the Dead on November 1st, also with an observance in 2026 on November 2nd. Most other years, this will result in both Halloween and the following day being a holiday to the complete delight of millions of kids. Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) is celebrated for two days in Mexico on November 1st and 2nd, and it’s an awesome holiday. You can do your own research or just watch Coco. I’m rolling it into one day for the US citizenry to coincide with Halloween.

This is followed immediately by Election Day on the first Tuesday of November. Why is this even a thing? In olden days, Wednesday was market day, so it was an effort to get more people to vote as they were already hauling their wares into town. Why haven’t we changed it? Tradition, stubbornness, I don’t know. Let’s just cement it as a day off to give more people an opportunity to make it to the polls, as was the original intention.

Veterans Day is remaining the same as it ever was. A salute to our fallen soldiers and a tribute to the end of war and a hope for world peace.

November 18th will henceforth be known as Gratitude Day. Spend the day taking stock of and enjoying everything you already have in this world before all of the end of year sales hit. Do you really need that thing-a-ma-bob on Black Friday? That whos-a-whats-it on Cyber Monday? Probably not.

From here we’ve got Thanksgiving on the third Thursday of November. Strange placement but everyone seems happy with it so I won’t tinker. I’ll add Native American Heritage Day to the third Friday of November to pair it with, the true meaning behind Thanksgiving. Before you get up in arms about adding this on top of Indigenous Peoples Day back in October, remember Gratitude Day from last week. Do you want to work on Black Friday? No, probably not. And if it can’t be avoided, wouldn’t you like it to come with premium pay for working on a holiday? Be grateful. Be thankful. Be kind (to the retail employees).

Behold this glorious little snake of holidays bisecting November!

Christmas is looking lonely.

In the spirit of giving, which occupies both November and December, the first Tuesday of December is Giving Tuesday. In 2026 this falls on the 1st. Here’s your chance to participate in a “counterbalance to consumerism” by focusing on charitable giving and volunteering for nonprofit organizations. Now you won’t have that pesky job in the way to stop you from serving food at your local soup kitchen or walking dogs at your local animal shelter or just mailing a check to the charity of your choice. “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion," Abraham Lincoln.

While we’re building good relations with our fellow humans, December 10th is Human Rights Day. The date is set to honor the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, in 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first time basic human rights we’re established and ratified internationally. This should be particularly popular in the US which was originally founded on these basic but crucial ideals. Yes?

On December 17th, I’m bringing back Saturnalia! This was an ancient Roman festival, kind of like Christmas, that was banned by English and Massachusetts Puritans in the 17th century. This was a time for revelry, feasting, and small gift-giving in honor of the god Saturn. Most importantly, it was a day of temporary inversion of social norms where masters served slaves. In our case, the billionaires would serve us in some way. There were also sacrifices made to Saturn but we’ll skip that part.

At first I thought adding Saturnalia was a bit of a reach for a man out of holiday ideas but it actually fits in with the puzzle quite harmoniously. According to Wikipedia, it was a day off from all forms of work, schools were closed, exercise regimens suspended, courts not in session, and no declaration of war could be made. At it’s heart, that’s exactly what Vacation For The Nation has been about from the start. Plus, anything that was considered rowdy by the Puritans was probably fun.

The Winter Solstice is squished in here on the 21st but I firmly believe that the changing of each season is holiday-worthy. Only a workaholic or billionaire slave-driver would complain about more time off in December. Right?

That leaves us with Christmas, but I’m instituting that Christmas Eve and New Years Eve are both official holidays now. Though Trump may have beaten me to the punch on that one? He must’ve seen my blog and started acting on it, and I’m not mad. The sooner all sixty of my holidays are on the books the better.

It’s fitting that the most decorated holiday season of the year should have a decorated calendar.

Stay tuned for Part 6: the conclusion of the Vacation For The Nation series. I’ll riff on my overall thoughts, feelings, and the process of assuming auditing the entire calendar year to create all four-day work weeks wouldn’t be a complicated undertaking. I may even have some more Vacation For The Nation swag for you, wink wink.