The Importance of Snow Days

Liz Carson

As high students, there are few things that we love more in the world than snow days. The technical definition of snow day is, “a day on which a school is closed due to heavy snowfall or other extreme winter weather.” However, I think it means something a little different to all of us.

 

A snow day is usually declared as a physical safety measure, considering the winter weather in Minnesota is sometime so miserable we are advised to never leave of snow-covered caves we call home. Snow days are a necessity if the weather results in enough heavy snow precipitation that our poor cars (most of them are only high-schooler level quality) are unable to wade through levels that are taller than even the fattest puppies. Snow days are also considered when it is so cold out that our thermometers stop working. Wait, why do we live here again? However I’ve come to the conclusion that snow days offer almost just as much mental safety as physical.

 

Students are constantly overworked and stressed out. The greatest beauty of a snow day is the surprise of it all. It’s fast, unexpected and highly exciting. Learning that we have a snow day offers the same rush of pure happiness as finding money you forgot about in your coat pocket, or smelling a batch of fresh cookies in the oven. So much happiness. That joy alone is already a stress relief to most students, not to mention the actual day itself.

 

Snow days offer a chance to catch your breath, to stop running for a second and smell the roses (buried deep under 12 inches of snow). A day off from school offers so many benefits, especially when it is unexpected and you are actually supposed to stay in your house. The extra day gives us not only time to work on school things that matter, like the never ending lava pit of burning time sensitive homework, but it also gives us time to do the things we actually want to do.

 

Watching TV, baking, playing video games, crafting, making music, our actual hobbies. As the hype of the last snow day rapidly spread through the halls, almost as rapidly as the snow came down all night, I took some time to ask our peers what they loved most about snow days. Answers varied from adventurous blizzard expeditions to literally sleeping for the next 24 hours, but they all had one thing in common: fun. That’s the most important thing in life, to have fun, so if i’ve done my calculations correctly, i’m pretty sure snow days are actually the most important thing in life. It’s short lived, but nevertheless, it’s an actual break from most of our stress and responsibilities, one of the few threads of our childhood innocence that we are left to desperately grasp on to.
So here’s to you snow days, may you never stop surprising us.