Suppose we were limited to 5 National holidays...which would you keep?

[haele]

35. I would keep:

Memorial Day, 4th of July (Independence Day), Labor Day, Veteran's Day...

But I would add a new holiday: Voting Day
And I'd set it in the beginning of March or April - starting the lame duck legislative session right afterwards, with inauguration/assumption of office the day after Memorial Day.

I would also set a the requirement for seven non-specified federal working "holidays" to be allowed every non-official holiday month to every Federal employee that is scheduled at during a set period twice a year (say schedule four holidays Jan 2 - 10 for Feb through June and three holidays on June 1 - 10 for August through January) as a "use or lose" benefit.
These holidays are to be requested to occur every month that does not already have a holiday in it or the employee can "bank" a holiday to the end of the calendar year to be taken over an overall "winter holiday" (i.e., Christmas, Hanukkah) as the job requirements allow. (This will keep most government offices open except on the five official holidays as employees "flex" these holidays.)
Once approved and scheduled, these holidays cannot be reascended by a supervisor without paying the employee for them tax free - however, if the employee decides at the last minute not to take it or changes up their personal scheduling and doesn't want to take it on the scheduled day, that holiday will automatically be banked to Jan 1st, and subsequent "missed" scheduled holidays will bank to days previous - counting back from Dec 31 to Dec 24 (weekends don't count).

This way, people can schedule holidays around the main religious holidays, children's school holidays, state holidays, and other important events - or just have one guaranteed paid day off a month scheduled for mental health. After all, not everyone wants to take off Xmas or Thanksgiving (and frankly, Thanksgiving is just about as coherently associated with a significant national event as President's Day or Columbus Day), and many times, there's a lot of important official business that does not wait until a holiday is over to get done.

It's a much more civilized way of handling holidays. Now if we can get more paid leave days...

Haele