How to Celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Birthday

Banks no longer close on February 12, and you probably won't get the day off from work, but you can still celebrate the birth of the man who held the country together through its darkest hours.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Civil War-era Cookbooks
• Famous & Historic Trees Catalogs
• Lincoln Biographies
• Party Drinks
• Party Food
• Airline Tickets

1. Read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and some of his other writings. He had a command of the English language that modern presidential speech writers can only dream about.
2. Visit a Civil War battlefield - Gettysburg or any other - and imagine what it must have been like to fight there. Think about what it must have been like to be the Commander-in-Chief back in Washington.
3. Visit Washington, D.C., and tour the places associated with Lincoln: the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, the U.S. Capitol and Ford's Theatre. While you're at the Capitol, notice the marble bust of Lincoln in the rotunda; it's the work of Gutzon Borglum, who carved the massive Presidential heads at Mount Rushmore.
4. Spend some time in Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library, an American Memory Project of the Library of Congress (memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml).
5. Plant a living connection to Abraham Lincoln: a white oak tree decended from one at his log-cabin birthplace near Hodgenville, Kentucky. If it's too early to plant a tree where you live, order a catalog from Famous & Historic Trees and do what gardeners do: pore over the pictures until the weather warms up.
6. Throw a party in honor of our 16th President and whoop it up. His portraits might show him somber-faced and brooding, but Abe Lincoln liked to laugh, and he enjoyed a good time as much as anyone. (The play he went to see at Ford's Theatre was a comedy.)

Tips & Warnings

• For information on Lincoln-related sites around the country, contact state tourism offices, including those of Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky.
• Lincoln's writings are a gold mine for quotation collectors. Try stitching a few into needlepoint pillows. A couple of good candidates: "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues;" or "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."
• You'll find food and drink ideas for your Lincoln's birthday bash in Lincoln biographies and 19th-century and southern cookbooks.