Obama declares Christmas Eve a holiday, but only if you work for him

Did a petition on the White House website calling for govement workers to get Christmas Eve off actually work? A call for President Obama to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, George W. Bush, and give govement workers the day off successfully surpassed the 25,000-signature mark required for an official response. And in the response, the president issued an executive order declaring, \"All executive branch departments and agencies of the Federal Govement shall be closed\" on Dec. 24. Nice! But did the pres plan on this all along? A petition to start work on a Death Star has more than 30,000 signatures, but it doesn't look like anything's in the works yet. [Source]

Do you think the petition influenced the president?