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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump participate in the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony Monday, Nov. 30, 2020, on the Blue Room Balcony of the White House.Flickr / Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour

WASHINGTON D.C., December 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday again making Christmas Eve, the day before Christmas, a federal holiday this year.

“All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Thursday, December 24, 2020, the day before Christmas Day,” declared Trump in his Dec. 11 Executive Order.

The order states, however, that “certain offices” must remain open on December 24 “for reasons of national security, defense, or other public need.”

This marks the third time Trump has designated Christmas Eve day a fully-paid day off, a practice he began in 2018 and continued in 2019. He is the first president to make the day before Christmas such a holiday. While other presidents, including Harry Truman (1948), Dwight Eisenhower (1953 and 1959), Richard Nixon (1970), Ronald Reagan (1987), Bill Clinton (1998), and Barack Obama (2009 and 2015) have issued four hours off of normal working hours on Dec. 24, Trump is the first president to issue the entire day off.

Christians celebrate during Christmas the birth of Jesus Christ, whom they believe to be God’s son and the one who saves mankind from sin and opens up to all the possibility of an eternal life with God in heaven. Christians around the world begin celebrating Christ’s birth on Christmas Eve. The day is usually marked with families gathering to share a special Christmas dinner followed by religious service at church.

President Trump has been described as the “man who brought Christmas back to America.”

This comes from Trump’s refusal to bow to political correctness, such as in 2016, when as President-elect he said, “We’re gonna start saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.” The president has prominently displayed a beautiful traditional nativity set with a baby Jesus in a manger as part of the White House’s Christmas decorations. He has organized Catholic sisters to sing at the White House’s National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony. He has given Christmas speeches where he reminds Americans that Christmas is about the “celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” where the “most extraordinary gift of all, the gift of God's love for all of humanity” is remembered.

This year, as mainstream media ramped-ep attacks on Trump for refusing to cancel Christmas at the White House as coronavirus fears gripped the nation, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended the President’s decision to host about a dozen Christmas gatherings in December.

“We will engage in the celebration of Christmas,” she said.

McEnany said that if people in America have been allowed to “loot businesses, burn down buildings, engage in protest, you can also go to a Christmas party, you can celebrate the holiday of Christmas, and you can do it responsibly.”

McEnany was likely referring to the Black Lives Matter mobs this summer who, backed by various Democrat governors in certain states, were allowed to engage in violent destructive protests – without wearing masks or socially distancing.