“A white people New Year’s Eve tradition”

When I first started teaching HS for the DOE in the Bronx, I related a family tradition to one section of living environment … and it kind of went off the rails.

They knew I was Irish-Danish; they’d asked. Near the holiday break, I said that “something my family does every year for New Year’s Eve is … we take the giant wall-calendar off of the wall and burn it.”

My students seem to be amenable with this practice and said maybe they would burn their own calendars.

———

For whatever reason, the way I related our tradition, the students came away thinking that burning your calendars on New Year’s is a white people tradition… not a “my family” tradition.

I accidentally made some of them think that all white people burn their calendar in the BBQ on New Years Eve.

There’s only about 26 people that I influenced to think this (if you assume they were all listening and believed it) but I wanted to let you know if you come across that … it came from me.