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| Santa image from Ripley Library |
Roots in Ripon
Chuck Roots
The Ripon Bulletin
I trust you all had a blessed and Merry
Christmas! Our family got together several times during the month od December,
each time having lots of fun and laughter.
On Saturday afternoon we were sitting around the
living room chatting merrily away when our ten-year-old granddaughter Alyssa,
asked if she could read some of the short stories she has been writing.
Apparently, her fourth-grade teacher at Colony Oak Elementary has been working
with the kids on their writing skills. Not just composition, but the formation
of thought, development of ideas, along with sentence structure and expanded
vocabulary.
Intrigued, we six adults in the room encouraged
her by all means to read her stories. The favorite story is one entitled, Santa
as a Kid. We all laughed at this twist on the Christmas character so readily
recognized. I asked Alyssa if I might share it with my friends who read my
weekly Roots in Ripon column. She happily agreed. I made only a few punctuation
changes. Otherwise, this is exactly how Alyssa wrote her story.
Santa as a Kid
Everyone has to be a kid once in their life. This
is about Santa as a kid. You probably don’t think much about it because in all
the stories he is a jolly old guy. He is actually Santa the 15th, so when he
was little he liked to play games.
Video games were just coming out and Santa the 15th
wanted to play some of the games that came out. So, Mrs. Claus took him to a
store and bought some games. She told him he had to promise to not be on it all
the time. When they got back home they put it together and Santa 15th started
to play on it right away. Time passed so quickly it felt like morning a couple
minutes ago. Now it is nighttime. Mrs. Claus called upstairs to Santa 15th for
dinner. He said he would be a few minutes, but he took two hours! So, Mrs.
Claus came storming up the stairs and burst into his room. “That is enough
playing games for today!” she yelled.
So, he went downstairs slowly and ate his dinner
slowly, and went back upstairs to brush his teeth and go to bed. Mrs. Claus
told him to go straight to bed, and he said he would. A few hours later when
everyone went to bed, Santa 15th got up and started to play video games until
morning and Mrs. Claus had a fit. She threatened Santa 15th to take away his video
games, and she did as she said she would.
A few years later he was a teen and moved out, then
got video games and sat on his couch all day eating cookies, pizza, and milk
while playing video games. And that is how there became a fat Santa. Santa 15th
has a kid now – and he plays video games!
The End
The
gist of the story is a swipe at the never-ending challenge parents (and
grandparents) face daily these days with children who are consumed with playing
games on their cell phones, iPads and iPods.
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| Roots in Ripon - Author Chuck Roots |
We’ve
all seen it. A group of kids sitting around, each engrossed in their own
electronic device, oblivious of their friends sitting right next to them.
Teachers have difficulty with kids texting their classmates during school
hours. And according to statistics, too many car accidents are being attributed
to teens and adults tapping away on their cell phones while rolling down the
highway at 65 mph or greater. I’ve seen a man and woman seated in a nice
restaurant, each pecking away, connecting with someone unseen, while ignoring
the one right in front of them.
I
was both amused and proud of Alyssa for tackling a current social dilemma,
while at the same time giving it a humorous story line.
Funny!
I always wondered how Santa got so fat!
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