Posted on 12/23/2005 10:07:40 AM PST by TexasGreg
Grinchy remark sends kids home in tears By RORY SCHULER Staff Writer Lebanon Daily News
LICKDALE — Jamey Schaeffer stretched her mouth open wide, showing off a pair of twin gaps in her smile. With a mouthful of fingers, she said she has no interest in two front teeth for Christmas. Instead, she’d like a Barbie doll from Santa Claus — and Santa Claus only.
But a substitute music teacher almost came between the 6-year-old and a Christmas Eve spent dancing cheek to cheek with sugar plums.
Theresa Farrisi stood in for Schaeffer’s regular music teacher one day last week. One of her assignments was to read Clement C. Moore’s famous poem, “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” to a first-grade class at Lickdale Elementary School.
“The poem has great literary value, but it goes against my conscience to teach something which I know to be false to children, who are impressionable,” said Farrisi, 43, of Myerstown. “It’s a story. I taught it as a story. There’s no real person called Santa Claus living at the North Pole.”
Farrisi doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and she doesn’t think anyone else should, either. She made her feelings clear to the classroom full of 6- and 7-year-olds, some of whom went home crying.
Schaeffer got off the school bus later that day, dragging her backpack in the mud, tears in her angry little eyes.
“She yelled at me, ‘Why did you lie?’” recalled Jamey’s mother, Elizabeth. “‘Why didn’t you tell me Santa Claus died?’”
Elizabeth Schaeffer said she was appalled by Farrisi’s bluntness.
“I had to call the school,” said Schaeffer, a part-time custodial employee for the school district who is on temporary leave after complications from her last child’s birth. “I had to do something.”
Meanwhile, Farrisi, who is well versed on the history of “Santa Claus” — the traditional and literary figure — clarified her comments.
“I did not tell the students Santa Claus was dead,” she explained. “I said there was a man named Nickolas of Myrna who died in 343 A.D., upon whom the Santa Claus myth (is based).”
On Monday night, Jamey started to recite Moore’s famous poem while sitting on a couch next to a freshly cut tree, trimmed in tinsel and topped with a golden star: “’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house. No creatures stirred.”
She paused, looked up, and said that’s when the teacher interjected, just a few lines before the verse that announces the arrival of “a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.”
“The teacher stopped reading and told us no one comes down the chimney,” Jamey said, curling into a ball on the couch, bracing her chin on her knees, her voice shrinking away like melting ice cream. “She said our parents buy the presents, not Santa.”
Sharing in the belief of Santa Claus is a very special event in the Schaeffer home. Jamey’s the second youngest of five children. The three oldest have already grown up and left the family nest. Only Jamey and her 18-month-old sister, Amanda, remain.
Last year, Elizabeth Schaeffer recalled, Santa left a trail of boot prints in charred ashes from his feet-first landing in the fireplace. And this year, the family will continue their tradition of leaving him a plate of cookies, a tall glass of milk and a ripe, shaved carrot for Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.
The Schaeffer family wasn’t the only one taken aback by Farrisi’s approach to Santa.
Tim and Beth Rittle said they found their 7-year-old daughter, Holly, in tears in the back seat of their car after they picked her up from school that day.
“All of a sudden, Holly just started crying,” Beth Rittle said. “She said she had a substitute in music class, and she told the class there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”
Schaeffer and Rittle both called Northern Lebanon School District Superintendent Don L. Bell.
Since the issue involves personnel, Bell said Monday, there is little he can say about the incident, adding that it has not been determined if any disciplinary action is warranted against Farrisi.
Bell said he was aware that several parents have expressed concerns about the incident.
He also noted that the handling of Santa Claus isn’t covered in the school code.
“We do not have a Santa Claus policy,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, but I really can’t say anything about it.”
Farrisi said she considered approaching the school’s administration with her concerns about how to handle Santa Claus in class. Instead, she said, she decided to add a disclaimer to her lesson.
“Those same children are going to know someday that what their parents taught them is false,” she ex-plained. “There is no Santa Claus.”
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Schaeffer was carefully thinking about her next step. She decided to make a photocopy of editor Francis P. Church’s famous response to a little girl, who wrote to The New York Sun many decades ago, asking the same question Schaeffer’s daughter struggled with last week.
“I mailed (Farrisi) a copy of ‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,’” she said, giggling with satisfaction. “I wish I could be there when she opens it.”
As for Jamey, in an attempt to reaffirm her spot on Santa’s nice list, she drew up a new letter in bright red magic marker, a message destined for the Santa she refuses to abandon.
“Dear Santa ... How is the North Pole?” she said, reading her letter loudly and proudly. “How is Mrs. Claus? You are Great. From Jamey.”
Sad...there's hardly any innocence left and now they're trying to take away Santa. Let the kids have some clean fun for a change and use their imagination!
Bet ya she's got oodles of degrees in EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION!
Yeah, she's as sensitive and caring as a hungry viper.
Not sure about salient, but there was a long discussion on whether people who make it a practice not to lie to their children are liars [Howlin' claims, without presenting evidence, a definitive yes]; and on whether those who tell their kids that there's actually not a literal person called Santa Claus living at the north pole thereby make their children to become liars if they ask them not to take it upon themselves to correct the views of other parents' kids.
Don't see this as necessarily corresponding to Santa Claus practices; it's an offshoot discussion.
I agree. Santa Claus is a simple myth we tell children because in the simplistic , childish way it conveys the feelings of the holiday and its a fairy tale.
These holier than thou Christians or the PC crowd are on this one , bizzarly together! ha. Pagan lies? An untrue story?Ok all you Maroons who are going to tell your 4 year old and all other 4yr olds "the truth"...I guess you don't tell your children any Mother Goose stories and of course Barney is just a guy in a suit!
Beyond stupid!
I'm done, by the way. Far be it from me to argue with a woman (I've just figured out that you're female) on the edge of Christmas Eve.
Instead, allow me to wish you and yours a happy Christmas; and also a very happy 2006.
Perhaps you forgot that they are his children and he can tell them what he wishes... if you think that "ruins" it for your children.... Oh nevermind I hear the whanbulance coming for you already.
I gotta say, when I found out my parents had been lying to me about the santa deal, I lost all respect for them. Especially after they had taught me not to lie and how very important not lying was.
Excellent post and amen.
Thanks. Just send her a card.
Interesting.
I agree with that but the older child who just figured out there wasn't a Santa better not share it with a younger sibling or any other younger child who still believed. When our oldest figured it out, and usually they don't have to be told. They just figure it out on their own, we just asked him if he would like to help is play Santa for his little brother and he was thrilled and it helped him hang on to the thrill for a few more years.
By the way, Both of my grown sons still believe in Jesus.
That teacher should be tared and feathered.
Have a Merry Christmas Howlin
I would hope that if anyoen sent her anything, it would be a politely, even warmly, worded Christmas card. Anything else would be hateful and counter to the purpose of the holiday.
Of course, the thought of this obvious liberal getting bombarded with thousands of Christmas cards full of warm wishes is just so appealing.
Its the same thing I recommeded to do with those people putting up anti-Christmas displays... instead of knocking them down, make sure to have a non-stop flow of Christmas carollers parading passed their house.
To these people, it would just drive them crazy. hehehehe
Excellent post and amen.
Is it really that close a call in your homes between Jesus and Santa? I pray fervently that our Lord God send your children the power to discern the presence of the Holy Spirit when they invoke the name of Jesus and give their hearts totally over to Him.
Folks, just remember, Santa ain't got no Holy Spirit, and Rudolph didn't climb up on the cross. Donner and Blitzen didn't start the Church, and the Penetecost didn't happen to the elves.
If your kids are in danger of confusing Santa and God, you might want to rethink what and how often you are teaching them from the Bible.
God bless.
The REAL Santa doesn't wrap presents at all - he leaves them out unwrapped so you have something small to play with before it's time to open the real presents. Yours must be a fake Santa.
You forgot about the part where he leaves MY presents on one side of the couch and my sister's on the other. :-)
"You can't fool me, there is no Sanity Clause!"
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