Pupils' Christmas 'ruined' by vicar's Santa Claus origins story

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Pupils' Christmas 'ruined' by vicar's Santa Claus origins story

Steven Morris
theguardian.com, Thursday 12 December 2013 14.34 GMT

A vicar has caused a festive furore after accidentally breaking the news to a group of primary school pupils that Father Christmas doesn't really exist.

Parents at Charter primary school in the Wiltshire market town of Chippenham were left fielding some very awkward questions after Canon Simon Tatton-Brown explained how Santa was based on the legend of Saint Nicholas.

Some parents threatened to pull their children out of a Christmas concert at his church, St Andrew's, in protest, arguing that they would not barge into one of his services and announce that the story of Jesus was a fiction.

Tatton-Brown's slip came as he delivered his festive address to pupils. A "technical issue" meant he had to work without notes and he told them that many believed the figure of Father Christmas was based on Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century saint renowned for his secret gift-giving.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/dec/12/pupils-father-christmas-ruined-by-vicar-santa-claus-origins

[intaglio]

1. The parents think that their Primary school age children

... don't know it is their parents dropping off the xmas stockings?!

Pre-primary maybe, but unless the teachers are keeping the older children away from the 1st years with barbed wire then the 1st years already know.

[No Vested Interest]

6. According to an OP in the Lounge a few days ago

many children (now DUers) believe in Santa until 10-12 years.
This is a tricky issue, because we all know the children will learn sooner or later, and more often than not, it will be from an older child.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. The article says it's the 9 year olds they're worried about

It reads as if they think they can get away with telling the young ones that the vicar was wrong, but they've been stringing the 9 year olds along until now.

"He's a person of authority and it's not his place to be telling the children that.

"It's the older children who have suffered the most because their parents can't really talk their way out of it like the parents of younger children can.

"Loads of kids went home crying – it has ruined Christmas for them. It wasn't a nice story for children to hear, there were lots more he could have told. Not only has he spoiled Father Christmas for them, a lot of them are now questioning the existence of the tooth fairy as well."

That sounds almost like a spoof. But he's a real canon, and the school is real, and this is reported all over the place, so I guess it's real. Oh no, not the tooth fairy too! These people of authority - don't they know it's their job to make things up? By the time the children are 9, they're starting to understand that their parents make things up too, so we need all the back-up we can get ...

Good news, kiddies - your parents love yo so much they've been buying you extra presents all this time, and not even expecting to get thanks for it.

[cbayer]

2. I made a tragic and similar error as a child.

After human sexuality was explained to me by my parents (and I was rather stunned), I told my two good friends who happened to be catholic.

Their parents were really upset.

[trotsky]

3. Ironic story is ironic.

Vicar tells others that an entity believed to be real is actually a myth.

[Iggo]

4. Amazing, isnt it?

[cleanhippie]

8. Exactly.

[Humanist_Activist]

5. OK, that is fucking funny. n/t

[okasha]

9. "Father Christmas"

is in any case an adaptation of the pagan Holly King.