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.”
E-Mail address?
And am I the only one who has noticed the similarity between all the "Santa Claus isn't literally true, but he's true in a much more important sense" rhetoric and liberal, non-Fundamentalist theology?
You nailed it. I am a "purist" because I don't lie to my children.
My grown sons are purists also, in that they will not lie to their children. With G-d's help, my grandchildren will be the same... It may be a minor point to some, but my sons and my grandchildren will, with G-d's will know the difference between the truth and a lie - even in minor things.
Thank you for the kind words of support!
I'm afraid most people don't feel this way, but perhaps I will be surprised.
No one ever actually told me there was no Santa. I had my doubts for quite a while and finally, one Christmas Eve, I saw my parents hauling stuff out of the shed in back. Merry Christmas, let the spirit live on!
"My kids are 26 and 23, and Santa Claus still comes for them.
Us, too! Right down to their presents being wrapped in tissue paper because that's what Santa uses. :-)"
I know! Santa Claus also comes for my cat Jackson and my neighbors who are alone plus their pets.
I remember being shocked when I learned the truth, but then again, I didn't start questioning God.
So I don't know. The human psyche rarely runs from point A to point B in a straight line.
I just wish parents would wait a little later past the tender age of 7 before spilling the beans about Santa.
Don't think I'm out on a limb here but let me see...old maid, never been laid.
A lie is nothing more than a false assertion, whether verbal or not. There can be no lie without an assertion. A so called lie of omission, is nothing more than a non-verbal assertion. If a parent tells their child there is no Santa, and then tells not to say anything about it, they are not commanding them to make any assertions at all. They're telling them not to speak about it. Simply not speaking is not a lie, unless you intend to assert something by your non-speech.
It's always amazing to me that some people feel the need to lie to their children's faces, in order to make the celebration of the birth of Christ more "special". I always loved Christmas, and my parents never felt the need to lie to me about Santa. IF you lie to them about Santa how do you expect them to trust what you say about Christ? They may end up thinking you lied to them about God just to make them feel better too.
Hitting the egg nog early?
"Am I the only one who sees it as sort of inevitable that the child thus lied to will naturally assume the same about what his parents told him about A-mighty G-d? "
The difference is that a parent will eventually "come clean" and admit Santa is mythical. A parent that takes their religion seriously will never do the same thing about God, no matter how old the child is.
I can certainly see a qualitative difference between the two. Mom and Dad pretended Santa was real for my benefit. When it came to God, they really believed it, and I never had any doubt about their commitment to it simply because I was raised with Santa rather than without.
What myth? :)
Actually, a little research reveals two possibles for this woman's residence.
One for Theresa E. Farrisi in Richland, PA which is 16 miles from the school and one for Theresa R. Farrisi in Myerstown, PA which is 12 miles from the school.
I leave the rest to anyone who wishes to pursue it.
So, if another kid asked you what Santa Claus is bringing you for Christmas, what was your reply?
What's all this lying business? Santa -is- real. :o)
The Santa story is FUN for children, and it is my opinion that it is good for parents, in that it teaches them the joy of giving without getting credit for it.
And it teaches children the wonder of fantasy.
Somewhere, I believe there IS a Santa. I am 57 years old.
And I am a committed Christian.
Somebody's not going to be getting any presents. :-)
I'm sure all that drivel makes you feel morally superior to the rest of us.
Pity your children.
Oh, I think YOU may be doing a little extra work over the Holidays!
Good on you; you will be rewarded all your life.
I bet she doesn't have a problem teaching that homosexuality is a valid and healthy lifestyle choice...
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