Do you look like Santa Claus. Let’s let our visitors help decide who the most realistic Santa Claus is…
Send us YOUR picture if YOU look like Santa Claus!
For instance Number 1:
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Send us YOUR picture if YOU look like Santa Claus!
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#10
Santa’s Unofficial Public Playground Rule Book
Most of our visitors are kids (from 1 - 92). A little younger, a little older… But all of our visitors are concerned with keeping families safe and healthy. This is where note sharing counts and makes a difference. Subject that we cover are: (For infants, toddlers kids and seniors (those of us returning to childhood): toy safety, A/H1N1 flu vaccine, playground safety, eating well, playground safety, etc.
This article discusses PLAYGROUND SAFETY. I am in charge of creating a playground safety parent-authored set of safety rules that can apply to shared use of public playgrounds. Here are some familiar topics (unofficial rules) that inspired the effort:
But here are also some surprises that are seemingly no-brainers that we somehow never though of. You are invited to contribute as we are all on the same mission. Here are a couple of things to consider for addition to our Unofficial Public Playground Rule Book: Please vote with your comments and help us develop a goodset of rules that will make the playground fun for everybody and safe too!
1. Throwing or rolling toys from slides or high playground equipment:
What we have seen: Parents who let their kids take metal toy trucks on 8-foot high play equipment and freely throw them of and slide them on the slides, sometimes hitting other children in the head and such, and never even considering the possibility of injury.
2. Putting pets on play ground equipment: (Santa Claus LOVES dogs and pets. Santa even talks about gifts for pets! But we want to take care of our pets responsibly!)
What we have seen: Adults and older children who let their dogs run unleashed up and down the playground equipment stairs. Adults who and older children who put their dogs on the slides.
Concerns:
1. Some dogs become frightened and urinate and having the equipment dirtied is not fair to other children. Also in general keeping the play apparatus reasonable clean for young children is difficult with pets allowed to share the equipment. Most people wouldn’t let their family dog sleep in a babies’ bassinets for the same reason. Toddlers will always be putting their hands in their mouths.
2. Some children will be startled if they are surprised by a dog on the climbing toys or high apparatus and my accidentally fall and get injured. Even children who are used to dogs, but some children are not even used to dogs. Children learning challenging climbing skills are easily distracted, bees can distract them enough to cause a fall. We can’t control bees, but we can ask adults to not create additional dangers?
Add your own rules or comment on these. Look forward to hearing from you!
Clement Clarke Moore The cover of an early edition of the poem
The modern version of Santa is, as most people know, the creation of Clement Clarke Moore, a 19th-century American poet whose “A Visit from St. Nicholas” was first published anonymously in 1823 in the Troy, NY Sentinel. Prior to this, St. Nicholas was not a “jolly old elf” with “eight tiny reindeer” and “a sleigh full of toys”; he was a stern, bearded patriarch who distributed canings to naughty children (as well as presents to the well-behaved). In many countries, particularly the Netherlands, he still appears on St. Nicholas Day -Dec. 6, not Christmas Eve - brandishing a shepherd’s crook and a slightly ferocious mien, and woe unto those who have been disobedient to their parents.
Thomas Nast’s 1881 version of Santa
St. Nicholas is venerated in both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition. Sailors revere him as a patron saint because he is credited with saving the life of a mariner who fell overboard in a terrible storm. He is associated with gift-giving because of his renowned generosity throughout his lifetime - he had a penchant for tossing bags of gold at the needy and threadbare.
St. Nicholas rescuing sailors in a storm (from the Duc du Berry’s Book of Hours)
Nicholas is also frequently portrayed as the patron saint of children, and, like a lot of religious stories, how he got the honorarium is fairly grisly. According to one story, during a terrible famine, a butcher who ran out of pork decided to make up the shortfall by killing and pickling three small children in a barrel of brine. St. Nicholas, no fool he, figured out the butcher’s foul plot and, through prayer, miraculously brought the children back to life (presumably pieced back together correctly). What happened to the evil butcher is not elucidated, but we can hope he got his just desserts, as it were.
St. Nicholas and the unpickled children
Nicholas’ journey from a righteous re-assembler of pickled children to a stern and scary patriarch, to a bringer of bicycles and Chatty Cathy dolls, is a fascinating story of how myths evolve to accommodate their cultures. Moore himself actually wrote another poem, called “The Santeclaus,” that seems to bridge the gap between the kinder, gentler Santa and the more intimidating Dutch incarnation. I haven’t been able to discover whether this predated or came after “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” There’s a certain curmudgeonliness to this one that makes me suspect it was written later, after an overlong visit from rambunctious grandchildren. Note, too, the pitch for educational toys and things that won’t put your eye out.
“Old Santeclaus”
by Clement Clarke Moore
Old Santeclaus with much delight His reindeer drives this frosty night, O’er chimney-tops, and tracks of snow, To bring his yearly gifts to you. The steady friend of virtuous youth, The friend of duty, and of truth, Each Christmas eve he joys to come Where love and peace have made their home. Through many houses he has been, And various beds and stockings seen; Some, white as snow, and neatly mended, Others, that seemed for pigs intended. Where e’er I found good girls or boys, That hated quarrels, strife and noise, I left an apple, or a tart, Or wooden gun, or painted cart. To some I gave a pretty doll, To some a peg-top, or a ball; No crackers, cannons, squibs, or rockets, To blow their eyes up, or their pockets. No drums to stun their Mother’s ear, Nor swords to make their sisters fear; But pretty books to store their mind With knowledge of each various kind. But where I found the children naughty, In manners rude, in temper haughty, Thankless to parents, liars, swearers, Boxers, or cheats, or base tale-bearers, I left a long, black, birchen rod, Such as the dread command of God Directs a Parent’s hand to use When virtue’s path his sons refuse.
Read more similar at the Best American Poetry Blog!
Frog Street Joins Santa and Santa.net bringing their Teachers’ Choice Award winning DVD, and so, offers this FREE Animated Classroom on Santa.net. We will be showing a new letter of the alphabet every two weeks. So there will always be plenty of fun learning tools to be found.
The new feature on Santa.net is a fun way for pre-schoolers and early learners to enjoy cartoons that are specifically designed to teach children to read and write. It’s hard to believe that kids are learning so much when you see them “glued to the screen” as the watch adorable cartoon characters and creative stories unfold. Each letter of the alphabet offers a story and a group of Frog Street’s adorable cartoon characters who teach children words that begin with a particular letter. The first letter offered on Santa.net is letter “H”, with Henrietta Hippo and Harvey too dancing at the Hippo Hop and teaching a whole bunch of “H” words in the process. Then, Mr. pencil flies around and teaches children the proper way to write each upper and lower case letter. Visit Frog Street Press’ Animated Classroom on Santa.net. Frogstreet sell this DVD, which contains 26 letter story animated cartoon, and 26 letter writing lessons with Mr. Pencil. It’s just under 90 minutes long and will give pre-schoolers hours and hours of positive educational entertainment. Everyone will be singing the twenty six songs and the Frog Street theme song as well. Have fun!
