My daughter’s school bus arrives near our home at the ghastly, beastly, unfairly early hour of seven-thirty, and this is the cause of much angst in our household.
I have never been an early bird in my entire life, as I have pointed out in earlier columns, and my four year old, to put it mildly, takes after me.
It matters not, her body clock avers, how early you have slept the night before, eight thirty in the am is when you must begin to think of waking up. Her father finds himself in complete, emphatic agreement with this philosophy, and neither of us therefore looks forward to the prospect of having to wake up at six forty five, Monday through Friday.
Especially, and this is the theme of today’s column, in the winter. Why, I wish to ask the universe, do we have summer holidays and not winter holidays? And even if there may have been a good reason to have holidays in the summer way back in time, it surely makes more sense to have holidays in the winter today, does it not? Ban the summer holidays, and bring on the winter ones. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a battle worth fighting, I assure you.
Consider, if you will, my arguments in support of this (even though I do say so myself) brilliant idea.
If summer is to be dreary, dull and deathly boring – and who among us has not spent a stultifying summer afternoon bathed in utter boredom – then one might as well spend it in school, eh? Far better to have the history teacher inform us of the exact moment when Cristopher set foot in America in a hot, lazy afternoon in May, rather than in a delightfully bracing, chilly but sunny afternoon in December.
Far easier, I maintain, to wake up early in the morning in the summer, when you’d just as soon be out of bed as in it, than in the winter, when wild horses are required to part you and your blanket. Far more preferable, I’d venture to suggest, to go for your annual holidays in the pleasant clime that December affords than the blast furnace that is May.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, here is my proposal: the first of December onwards, up until the very last day of January, ought to be the period of annual vacations for schools. The school year begins in February, and ends in November, and you can schedule the rest of it howsoever you like. I care not a whit how you do it.
All I ask is that when my daughter throws her arms around me at seven on a cold wintry morning, and says in a voice pitiful enough to shatter your heart, “Just five more minutes, please?”, I should be able to snuggle up to her and say in response, “It’s the winter holidays, sweetheart. Sleep on.”
Is this, I ask you, too much to ask for?
He doesn't expect the paradox to be resolved in his lifetime
- Life Doesn’t Get Better Than This - June 19, 2020
- It Takes More Than A PhD To Understand These Notifications! - June 8, 2020
- #FoodKarniTales-Cooking Is Simple, And Cooking Is Fun - June 1, 2020
