The santa thread

[Henry]

I'll be honest, if I had a child, I'm not sure I'd WANT him/her to believe in Santa Claus. Nowadays, someone dressed up in a suit sneaking into your home at night is more likely to be the next BTK killer than Santa Claus. One of Dennis Rader's victim's, at the time a 6-year old kid, let him in because he posed as a phone repair guy!

"It's Santa Claus, little Trisha, let me in." Yeesh!

 

[Dirigible]

I love their use of the word 'recanted'. Makes it sound like red-hot pincers were involved.

How old is a first-grade student? Is it the first year of school?

 

[Henry]

I love their use of the word 'recanted'. Makes it sound like red-hot pincers were involved.

How old is a first-grade student? Is it the first year of school?

First grade is typically six or seven years of age (more 7 than 6). Kindergarten is earliest age 5, but usually age 6).

 

[jaerdaph]

Just gimme the XBox 360 and shut your cookie hole, fat man!

 

[Kahuna Burger]

What does Santa Claus have to do with the Christian element of Christmas? If anything, IMO, Santa represents the secular side of the holiday.

It was a (clearly misguided) shorthand. People who are not at least "culturally christian" (so they don't go to church on easter instead of not going to temple on yom kippur) are unlikely to teach their kids about the man who delivers presants to everyone but them.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Should the teacher have recanted? Are the students going to listen to her in the future when she goes against something they believe in again?

from the expanded article (which gives more facts than the bizzaro-world one I read) I don't think she should have. She said that kids get presents from their parents which they do. At most she should have clarified that lots of people like to give presents and some presents may be from grandparents or older siblings or even santa.

 

[Aeson]

What does Santa Claus have to do with the Christian element of Christmas? If anything, IMO, Santa represents the secular side of the holiday.

Santa Claus is a fictitious version of St. Nicholas. Who may or may not be a Christian Saint. I say may not because if I read correctly he was removed from the list of saints.

I think I would rather go with St. Nicholas rather than the image created by Coca Cola, which is the image we see most often today.

 

[Aeson]

OOPs double post.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I'll be honest, if I had a child, I'm not sure I'd WANT him/her to believe in Santa Claus. Nowadays, someone dressed up in a suit sneaking into your home at night is more likely to be the next BTK killer than Santa Claus. One of Dennis Rader's victim's, at the time a 6-year old kid, let him in because he posed as a phone repair guy!

"It's Santa Claus, little Trisha, let me in." Yeesh!

I've thought of that too. I mean, we teach kids not to trust strangers, not to listen when an adult says "don't tell" and to believe we can protect them - then we say "go sit on that nice man's lap and remeber he knows everything and will control your christmas presents." :\

Maybe thats overly cynical, but I'd rather my kid was clear on the fact that adults in costume are just that.

 

[Aeson]

Parenting is full of contradictions. Don't talk to strangers but its ok to talk to Santa. Not to mention if you don't talk to people they will always be strangers. Don't listen when a adult says "don't tell." but do everything else he says. I wish we could protect children from everything but we can't. We need to pick our fights.