Monday is Presidents Day, and I’m sure you’ll spend all of your day off celebrating the 43 men who have been served in the nation’s top office.

We’ve had our share of great presidents over the 224 years since George Washington started serving in 1789.

Washington, of course, would be one of the good ones. In fact, since 1880, the holiday we are celebrating Monday has been called “Washington’s Birthday.”

It makes sense. Washington was the father of our country and all, and was a Revolutionary War hero. And when he chopped down that cherry tree, he told the truth about his indiscretion, making him the first — and probably only — president to not tell a lie.

He wasn’t perfect, of course. He wore a powdered wig, had wooden teeth and stood up when he rode in a boat. He also failed to return two books that he borrowed from a New York City library in 1789 and, according to a story I read a couple of years ago, has accumulated a $300,000 fine.

But a few years ago, “Washington’s Birthday” somehow morphed into “Presidents Day” as a way to honor all of our former presidents.

I understand that some of our presidents are worthy of a celebration. Abraham Lincoln, for his faults, still helped get the country through a Civil War. Thomas Jefferson is widely considered the father of our democracy, his rendezvous with one of his slaves notwithstanding.

Franklin D. Roosevelt led us out of the Great Depression and helped lay the groundwork for a victory in World War II.

John F. Kennedy set a goal of reaching the moon, and many people believe he’d have done even greater things had he not been shot down in Dallas.

But are all the men who served as president worth celebrating? I think not. Consider William Henry Harrison. He only served for 32 days.

See, Harrison decided he wanted to look like a stud, so on a cold, rainy Inauguration Day in 1841, he wore neither an overcoat nor a hat to deliver a two-hour inaugural address.

Because he didn’t wear an overcoat or a hat, he contracted pneumonia, was bedridden for most of his presidency and died after just a month in office.

On the other hand, because he served so few days, he didn’t have time to do anything stupid like order a break-in at Democratic headquarters or have sex with an intern in the Oval Office.

Speaking of Richard Nixon, we probably shouldn’t celebrate a president who plotted to destroy his political enemies, tried unsuccessfully to cover it up and resigned in disgrace.

In fact, because of Nixon, we should probably not celebrate James K. Polk, either. Polk, of course, didn’t have anything directly to do with Watergate — he was elected 128 years before the break-in. But as president, Polk did acquire California, which later gave us Nixon. So you see the connection.

It’s hard to celebrate James Buchanan, who is viewed by some historians as the nation’s worst president for his failure to deal with the secession of states. He believed that it was illegal for states to secede from the Union. But he also believed it was illegal to do anything to stop them.

So he did nothing, leaving a mess for the next guy, who happened to be Lincoln. In this regard, he reminds me of lots of modern-day politicians.

I should want to celebrate Warren G. Harding’s presidency. He’s the only president who was a newspaperman.

Unfortunately, Harding appointed his closest allies to prominent positions in the government, and before his term was over, two cabinet members had been sent to prison for accepting bribes and for directing underground alcohol distribution. Two other prominent government officials committed suicide.

But other than the scandal and the corruption, his presidency was a smashing success.

I hope I’ve given you some perspective for this Presidents Day. As it turns out, I won’t be celebrating any of our previous presidents tomorrow.

I have to work.

Mitch Clarke is executive editor of The Times. His column appears Sundays. Read previous columns at gainesvilletimes.com/mitch.