President Trump signs executive order making Christmas eve a federal holiday this year

Christmas Eve will be a federal holiday this year, thanks to a new executive order signed on Friday by President Trump. 

The executive order states that “all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Thursday, 24 December 2020, the day before Christmas Day.”

President Trump has previously done this twice before, in 2018 and 2019. 

The order does provide for exceptions:

"The heads of executive departments and agencies may determine that certain offices and installations of their organizations, or parts thereof, must remain open and that certain employees must report for duty on December 24, 2020, for reasons of national security, defense, or other public need."

The order was signed before President Trump got the news Friday evening that the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the Texas case challenging the election results in four swing states.