On the "Is this actually happening?" front...

It seems a principal in Massachusetts is creating a bit of a stir by suggesting that the Fall holidays not be observed. [link]

A quote from the principal...
"When we were young we might have been able to claim ignorance of the atrocities that Christopher Columbus committed against the indigenous peoples. We can no longer do so. For many of us and our students celebrating this particular person is an insult and a slight to the people he annihilated."

This was in reference to Columbus Day but she followed with, "On the same lines, we need to be careful around the Thanksgiving Day time as well."

There were already orders not to let the kids wear costumes for Halloween. That apparently came from the Superintendent who felt there were connections to "witchcraft."

I did not realize how traumatized and/or misled I had been as a child.

We did not know that Columbus initiated genocide, we just thought he bumped into the islands of the Caribbean while trying to find a shorter route to the Far East. We should have been taught that none of the horrible things that happened to the native populations in the next 300 or so years would have occurred if Columbus hadn't made that journey.

And Halloween? Why, look at the rampant devil worship that this so called "holiday" has spawned! You cannot cross a street without witnessing a human sacrifice or stumbling across a witch's coven dancing nude around a pyre.

And don't get me started on Thanksgiving Day... The eating of flesh and the celebrating of theft of game from the natives. Oh, the horror of it all!