The Randolph Township, New Jersey school board recently decided to join the woke crowd and rename Columbus Day. After changing the name to “Indigenous People’s Day,” the response from the community was, shall we say… less than enthusiastic. After the general uproar was given time to sink in, the school board met again to address the issue. Rather than switching the name back to what had traditionally been observed, the board decided to go in a totally different direction. They wiped the names of all holidays from the school calendar. Now every holiday will simply be referred to as “Day Off.” Despite my initial suspicions that this was a story intended for a different holiday on April 1st, this appears to be a factual story out of the Garden State. (NY Post)

Have a Merry “day off” and a Happy “day off”!

That’s the message from the school board of Randolph Township in Morris County, New Jersey, which unanimously voted Thursday to remove holiday names from their academic calendar following an uproar over renaming Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day, according to reports.

Now holidays like Thanksgiving and Memorial Day, as well as Jewish holy days like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, will simply be listed as “day off.”

Some of the board members sounded as if they were being a bit condescending when explaining the decision. One said, “If we don’t have anything on the calendar, we don’t have to have anyone [with] hurt feelings or anything like that.”

We’re talking about a fairly small school district here. After the board initially voted to change the name with no notification given to the public, 125 people showed up to the next meeting. While three people spoke out in favor of the change, it appeared that the vast majority wanted the decision reversed. This apparently led to this “brave” decision to simply wipe out all of the holiday names.

So are we to assume that Thanksgiving will be neither celebrated nor mentioned to the students? I’m guessing that the students will simply be sent home for a few days and told to “have a nice day off with your families.” In February, the children will be able to hand out small boxes of undecorated candy (or more likely trail mix) and cards reading “Won’t you be my day off?” And they can absolutely forget about Christmas or Hanukkah after they return in the fall. God only knows how many people would be offended by that. Anyone overheard saying “ho, ho, ho,” will receive a one-week suspension. (I’m just guessing about that.)

The timing of this might at least be seen as being in keeping with current events. Now that our Vice President has marked Memorial Day by telling everyone to “enjoy the long weekend,” the school board’s problem is solved in advance. Rather than marking “Memorial Day” on the calendar, they can simply cross out Friday through Monday and label the block “Long Weekend.”

We probably shouldn’t be making too many jokes about this seemingly silly story. It’s actually part of a much larger pattern that’s been emerging across the country for some time now. In our easily-triggered, woke society, everyone seems to be able to find something to be outraged about on a daily basis. This is particularly true of traditions that have been with us for many generations. Tearing down one statue of a confederate general was never going to be enough, so pretty soon nearly all of the statues had to come down. If Columbus Day is offensive, then someone will be offended by most of the rest of the days on the calendar. And underlying it all, it’s no longer good enough to live your life in harmony with your neighbors and not be a racist. You have to be an “anti-racist” or you will need to join the statues and the holidays in the dustbin of history. How much of this nonsense you’re willing to put up with is up to you. But personally, I’ll still be celebrating every holiday I feel like in the traditional fashion. Oh… and get off my lawn.

Before closing, this seems like an ideal story to trigger the playing of some non-holiday music. If you haven’t yet seen Tom MacDonald’s recent release “Snowflakes,” put in your earbuds and check this out.