We all know about “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” but allow us to introduce you all to the WENCH who stole Christmas.
According to reports from Texas, a kindergarten teacher from Peace Elementary school in Austin went and ruined Christmas for everybody last week by telling her students that Santa Claus isn’t real.
The Houston Press reported that a 5-year-old girl came home from school with a burning question for her father: “Daddy … is Santa real?”
Of course her daddy told her yes, but he also wanted to know why she would ask such a question.
“Because Mrs. Fuller” — the girl’s afterschool teacher — “said he wasn’t real. She said ‘None of you believe in Santa do you?’ and said that you and mommy buy all our presents and put them under the tree. She said that you should tell us the truth.”
And believe it or not, “Mrs. Fuller” isn’t the only Grinch-like, Santa-hating teacher at the school.
The girl’s mother said another teacher — in a totally unrelated, but oddly similar incident — told her students to draw two pictures on a piece of paper, one of something real, and the other of something imaginary. When one student drew Santa on the “real” side, the teacher informed him that Mr. Claus belonged on the “fake” side.
It goes without saying that the parents at that school, which apparently hates Christmas, were pretty pissed, and believe that it is not the school’s place to tell their children that Santa Claus isn’t real.
“To break that harsh reality to them in such a brutal way is just wrong,” the 5-year-old girl’s mom said. “Especially since these kids are five. She is just really getting into Santa.”
The mom also discussed the incident on her Facebook page:
“Another adult has no right to submit their own beliefs on a group of 5 year olds and their families – about Santa, God, politics or whatever – especially phrased ‘your belief is not right.'”
She added that another parent spoke for many when he wrote in an email that it was important for kids to make those kinds of discoveries on their own, as they matured.
The mother said she e-mailed a complaint to the school’s principal, who responded that he was “horrified” and that the teachers had been reprimanded and given “tools to deal with this situation” in the future.
He didn’t say exactly what those “tools” were, but we assume included is a guide on how not to ruin childhoods.
