Why February definitely isn't the worst month of the year
A purely objective ranking of the months.
It’s February 1. Which means it’s a perfect time to dump on February as the worst month of the year.
The anti-February bias — at least on the Internet — began in earnest back in February 2016 when Kevin Killeen, a St. Louis-based reporter, ran down the month in a segment.
The highlight of Killeen’s rant went like this:
“February is the worst month of the year. But it's an honest month. It's a month that doesn't hold up life any better than it really is. Look around here. These buildings, they look like they don't even have any lights in them during a work day. Something great happened here. But it's over with and that's the way February is."
And it’s not just Killeen! There’s polling to back it up! Here’s Gallup data from 2005 ranking the best months:
All of which got me to thinking: Is February really the worst month? (It’s not.) And, if not, what is?
Which led me to my definitive rankings of the months of the year — from worst to best. Nota bene: This is from the view of the east coast of the United States. If you live in another part of the country or world, you are responsible for your own power rankings.
August: It’s hot as crap all the time. No good movies are out so you can’t even cool yourself off in a theater. You’ve run out of “fun” things to do with the kids before school starts again. Baseball is the lone major sport playing — and even that feels like it’s just going through the motions. Just a dumpster fire of a month.
January: Gyms are too crowded because of various New year’s resolutions. The end of winter feels a long way off. The return to work after several weeks of vacation or downtime is TOUGH.
February: Ok, look. It’s not the best month. But it’s definitely not the worst. Things February has going for it: Groundhog Day (amazingly weird holiday), President’s Day (a holiday celebrating American history!) and Public Sleeping Day, which is a real thing and is celebrated on February 28. Plus, February is short
— so even if you hate it, it’s over relatively quickly.
March: I am not a fan of months that can’t decide what they want to be. Cold? Warm? Lion? Lamb? The best thing that March has going for it its March Madness, the best sporting event in America.
December: If only kids voted, December would be number one with a bullet on this list. Tough luck, kids! Christmas is super stressful — did I get the right thing, did I get enough, do they like what I got — for plenty of people. Plus, the days in December keep getting shorter — and no one is a fan of it being pitch dark out at 5 pm.
July: It’s summer — but only sort of. I have started to think of everything after July 4 as the end (or the beginning of the end) of summer. And I can’t think too well of a summer month darkened by Target hocking school supplies.
October: These rankings reflect a broader fact: Fall is the best season. While October is the least of the fall months — more on that below — it retains the basic characteristics — cool but not freezing temperatures, the move to your warmer clothes, apple picking — that define the season. Yeah, I said apple picking. It’s fun!
April: On the positive side: Spring has sprung. Cherry blossoms in DC. Rebirth after the long winter months and all that. On the negative side: Allergy season.
September: Back to school! Back to work! Optimism is running high! Fresh starts! The weather generally cooperates, leaving behind the scorching temperatures of August. The worries and drama of the Christmas season seem a long way off.
June: The cream of the crop of the summer months. The next school year feels like it will never come. This piece makes a convincing case that June is the best month for sports on the calendar - NBA Finals, NFL Mini Camps, Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Draft, Belmont Stakes etc.. June feels like the summer month when, in the words of Kevin Garnett, anything is possible.
May: An objectively good month. Warm temperatures are the norm rather than the exception. Schools are either out or almost out — which puts kids (and their parents) in a positive frame of mind. May also has two of the coolest one-off sporting events in it: The Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500.
November: November deserves the top spot for lots of reasons — fall foliage, chillier-but-manageable temperatures, football, pumpkin pie. Hell, November is #1 for Thanksgiving alone, which is, without question, the best holiday on the calendar.
My birthday is in June so I agree it’s one of the best months.
Not just an East Coast - but a mid-Atlantic perspective. October is the best month of the year in New England because fall foliage peaks in Maine, VT, NH and MA in October, not November. March is filled with mud from melting snow plus black flies so YUCK. February seems like the longest month of winter if you live in a state bordering Canada. Winter comes in for good in Dec and persists unrelentingly through January AND February and the 28/29 days of February seem as long as the 31 days of January. I expect you may get some critical comments about not mentioning Black History month. Why is the shortest month the Black History month? That seems like a purposeful slight to me. Also, this is a pet peeve of mine. The legal holiday in February is NOT President's Day but Washington's Birthday. The federal law in 1969 that shifted the commemoration of most holidays to Mondays and shifted Washington's Birthday specifically to the third Monday in February rather than Washington's actual birthday on February 22 had the practical effect of making this federal holiday NEVER fall on Washington's birthday but between Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday on Feb. 12. Damn confusing. I don't want to recognize our mediocre presidents like Millard Fillmore and Martin Van Buren or worse, our truly bad, venal presidents like Nixon and Trump along side our truly great presidents like Washington and Lincoln.