Snow days, they’re one of the most magical times of the year.! The day before a snow day, students and teachers anxiously check their weather apps, making sure the forecast has stayed consistent. After school, all wait in nervous anticipation for the announcement of school’s cancellation. Many may practice the customary snow day traditions such as wearing pajamas inside out and backwards, putting a spoon under their pillow, performing a snow dance, flushing ice cubes down the toilet, and placing a white crayon in the freezer or on every windowsill. Although, where did these rituals come from?
Wearing clothes inside out for good luck has been a tradition for a long time, and not just to summon snow days! In Europe and Ireland according to strangehistory.net if people wandered and became lost, they believed they were misled by fairies. A way to break the fairies’ spell was wearing an item of clothing inside out. A more modern example is when the audience at a sport’s game wears rally hats. This is when fans turn their hats inside out and backwards toward the end of a game, in hopes it will bring good luck and victory to their team. For snow days, wearing pajamas inside out and backwards is a superstitious way to reverse how a normal day would go, or “turn it inside out.”. Instead of waking up and going to school, students and teachers can sleep in and relax.
The practice of flushing ice cubes down the toilet and placing a spoon under the pillow may seem odd, but these superstitions are also believed to conjure a snow day. According to Dailybreak, in 2006 two little girls in Virginia flushed ice cubes down their toilet in hopes of a snow day. They thought if enough ice was flushed down, it would go to the ocean, freeze the water, and make it snow. Some believe you should flush an ice cube for each day you want off from school. The practice of putting a spoon under your pillow is meant to help you dream of a snow day. It represents a shovel, especially if the spoon is silver or wooden, so you have something to dig yourself out of the hopefully huge snow piles.
Snow dances are inspired by the Native American snow dances, which are meant to symbolize the falling of snow and persuade nature to bring snow and a beautiful winter. At the 1960 Winter Olympics in Lake Tahoe, traditional Native American dancers performed a snow dance to summon snow, since there hadn’t been much that winter. After the traditional dance that originated from the Paiute, Shoshone, and Washoe tribes in the Great Basin was performed, snow began to fall. According to Reno Gazette Journal, a similar event happened in 2014, when the Eagle Wings troop performed a snow dance for Olympic Heritage Season in the Lake Tahoe region. It hadn’t snowed all season, and after the performance flakes started to fall from the sky!
Overall, it is safe to say that most students and teachers are happy about this snow day! Who knows, maybe enough people performed these snow day rituals and manifested it. Even though today is a nice day to relax, and maybe get into the holiday spirit since it is now December, roads are expected to be icy with weather reports predicting up to 10 inches of snow. Remember to stay safe, stay warm, and enjoy your snow day!
Talia Harmon is a student writer and contributor for the Inkubator program.
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