Snow days are disappearing.
Thanks to remote learning technology normalized during the pandemic, many school districts now default to virtual instruction when winter weather strikes. Students log in from home, teachers conduct Zoom classes, and the educational calendar marches forward uninterruptedly. It’s efficient. It’s practical. It ensures no learning time is lost.
And yet something precious is being lost anyway.
The Gift of Snow Days
Do you remember the time, years before the pandemic, when the threat of a snowstorm created great hope that school would be canceled? You’d fall asleep listening to the weather forecast like it was a bedtime story, hoping for just the right mix of clouds and cold. In the morning, you’d wake up early, heart pounding, waiting to hear those glorious words: “School is canceled.” A snow day wasn’t just a day off—it was a gift!
Snow days were never really about snow. They were about a time to sled down hills until your legs ached, build snowmen, ice skate on frozen ponds and lakes, drink hot chocolate, and above all, stay home from school!
This isn’t to romanticize snow days beyond what they were. Not every child spent them building snowmen—some were stuck inside in homes without adequate heat, some had parents stressed about missing work, some felt isolated rather than liberated. And certainly, the educational disruption of too many snow days created real challenges for families and schools.
But in converting every snow day into a remote learning day, we’ve eliminated the possibility of the unscheduled gift.
Snow Days are Becoming a Relic
Lately, though, snow days feel like a relic. Not gone all at once, but slowly fading because remote learning changed the rules. What used to be an automatic shutdown has become a logistical adjustment. Laptops replace lockers. Google Classroom replaces the announcement crackling over the radio. The roads might be unsafe, but the expectation remains: log on, carry on, keep going. The storm can rage outside, but inside, the day looks normal, and something is lost in that shift.
What Snow Days Taught Us
Snow days taught us that the world doesn’t always run on our schedule. They reminded us that rest can be communal, that everyone—students, teachers, parents—could stop at the same time. They were small lessons in humility: nature is bigger than us, and sometimes we have to yield. Snow days provided a much-needed break for play and creativity.
A child attending virtual school from their kitchen table during a blizzard is technically learning. But they’re also learning something else. They’re learning that productivity is paramount, that all time must be accounted for, that the margin has been removed from life.
To Everything There is a Season
The Bible echoes that rhythm of time and seasons. “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, KJV). Snow days belonged to a season—not just of weather, but of life—when stopping was allowed, even celebrated.
As snow days become extinct, the deeper question isn’t just about weather or technology. It’s about whether we still know how to pause. Whether we still make room for wonder, unpredictability, and rest, especially when it’s inconvenient.
Maybe we can’t bring back the classic snow day in all its glory. But we can still learn from it. We can choose to close the laptop sometimes, look out the window, and remember that life is more than what gets done in a day.