A School Holiday Worth Observing

Yesterday brought yet another blizzard to the northeastern U.S., resulting in a "snow day" for our children and probably millions of others in school districts across the region.  I knew this fact before Young Daniel had gotten out of bed, and when he got up, he stood at the top of the stairs looking over the landing, and I stood at the bottom, and we discussed the state of affairs.

Daniel wanted to know if he had the day off, and I was going to say my standard, "I have some bad news," but I knew that that would tip him off immediately to the fact that he didn't have to go to school, and I wanted to stretch out the surprise a bit more, so instead I said, "I have some very good news!"  Daniel didn't show any chagrin when I said that, which meant that it didn't have the desired reverse-effect, but he looked for some clarification, at which point I corrected myself, and told him I had some bad news.  This is when his face lit up, and he immediately asked for a confirmation that school was cancelled for the day.

I told him that this was the case, and, of course, he was very excited, but then he got a bit less cheerful and told me that, in fact, this really was bad news.  Why?  Because, with school cancelled, he was missing Crazy Hat Day.  So now we can state for the record that Daniel has shown disappointment at the announcement of a school cancellation.

***

Many years ago, I invented a similar holiday, except that it was called, "Hat Days," rather than "Crazy Ha Day" - but I'm sure the main activity was the same for both occasions.  "Hat Days," in spite of the day, could last for mere minutes, or theoretically for years to come, and it involved mostly "borrowing" from Mom's hat collection when she was occupied with other things - for the most part - and wearing them around the house, or on one particularly festive Hat Days festival, putting Mom's beret on Bunny's head.  I hope that Daniel's Crazy Hat Day has some of this same wonder, and if so, I will be very sorry if they don't stage a makeup Crazy Hat Day in the wake of the untimely snow storm.

(March 8, 2013)