How to Celebrate Thomas Jefferson's Birthday

Chances are you won't get the day off work on April 13. But Thomas Jefferson's legacy deserves to be commemorated. Besides, he did so many things - and did them so well and with so much gusto - that his birthday makes excellent fodder for a celebration.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Seeds
• Ice Cream
• Airline Tickets

1. Read Jefferson's farm and garden books. Despite the fact that he wrote the Declaration of Independence and much of the Constitution, founded the University of Virginia and served as our third president, he considered himself first and foremost a tiller of the soil.
2. Visit some of the sites associated with Thomas Jefferson. Like his fellow Revolutionary-era patriots George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson left his footprints along much of the East Coast, from Virginia north to New England.
3. Plant a garden of the flowers and vegetables Jefferson grew at Monticello. You can order most of them at The Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants in Charlottesville, Virginia.
4. Sing. According to his contemporaries, Jefferson constantly sang to himself, as he wrote, gardened or merely went about his daily routine. (They don't tell us how good he was.)
5. Take up something you've always wanted to do but keep putting off because you're too busy. Start painting, now; or take those piano, riding or sailing lessons you've been putting off. One of Thomas Jefferson's greatest legacies, or at least the most useful, is the idea that "It is wonderful how many things may be done if we are always doing."
6. Throw an old-fashioned ice cream social. Jefferson loved the stuff; according to some reports it was he who introduced the delicacy from France in the 1700s.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're especially ambitious, you can even retrace the route Jefferson and John Adams took on a vacation cruise around Lake Champlain.