Three Things to do in Washington DC over Labor Day Weekend That Don’t Necessarily Involve Drinking and Are Under Twenty Five Dollars.

Labor Day always falls on the first Monday of September. The first governmental recognition of Labor Day came in the late 1880s through various municipal ordinances. President Grover Cleveland, our 22^nd, and 24^th President signed it into federal law in 1894.

Labor Day is meant to celebrate the ingenuity and the spirit of the American worker. On Labor Day, we should pour one out for all of the homies stuck as a cog in the capitalist system. We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and whistle while we work, dang it! However, we, as Americans, have lost that can-do attitude when it comes to Labor Day. Now, it is most often seen as a three-day weekend and a chance to get drunk on a Sunday and not have to deal with a hungover Monday morning meeting. Labor Day is your special day to attempt to drink Gatorade without actually lifting your head from your pillow and contemplating if you can get the delivery guy to actually bring the food into your bedroom.

And, you know, if that’s how you want to live your life, that’s okay.

However, if you’re in the DC Metro Area, there is a whole swath of activities that do not require you to remember how to shotgun a beer.

The Shakespeare Theater Company has its annual “Free For All” event all Labor Day weekend. They’ll be staging one of Shakespeare’s more popular and less lethal pieces, “A Midsummer’s Night Dream”. In order to score some sweet free tickets to an insanely good show, you can either enter an online lottery or line up two hours before curtain call. Just in case you don’t make it during the “Free For All” event, the show will be running until September 13^th.

If you’re not drinking and have decided to eat every deep fried possible thing ever, you are in luck. The Maryland State Fair in Lutherville-Timonium is running through Labor Day weekend. While you’re chomping on foods on sticks, you can meet Ravens players and watch chainsaw performance art. If you’re bringing any teen girls, Fifth Harmony will be performing there too! Tickets run from $3 to $8.

For any and all \”Orange Is The New Black\” fans, new addition, and tattooed dreamboat Ruby Rose will be in town over Labor Day weekend. She will be at Echostage for a DJ set. Because not only is she an actress and model, but she is also a bangin’ DJ. Tickets are only $25.

Take some time off this Labor Day weekend. It doesn’t have to be a weekend of excess. It’s worth exploring other similarly American options. Not all of us can party like Gatsby, you know? Plus, even if you don’t contemplate the plight of the proletariat and just want to take advantage of Labor Day sales, you deserve that. In the words of the most laudable and esteemed Parks and Recreation workers, “Treat yo’ self.”