Rewriting Xmas Songs

We hear “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” again and again this time of the year. This is such a popular xmas carol, and I really wonder why when listening to the lyrics. It leads my son to ask, “Why doesn’t Santa want me to cry?” That is a very good question!

The last time we heard the song, we decided to rewrite the lyrics. The original version goes “You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout - I’m telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town”. We considered “you better not fly/tie/try” and finally came up with… “You better watch out, you better not LIE, you better not pout”.

Why are we trying to threaten/scare our children into being good. Why oh-why do we not want them to cry? It is so sad. Marlo Thomas’s Free to Be - You and me had a song “It’s alright to cry. Crying takes the hurt out of it. It’s alright to cry. It just might make it feel better”. And really, it does. It does that and more.



Gordon Neufeld is big on allowing your kids the space to cry (especially the boys – he says). Really, what else can you do when there is complete frustration, and an inability to change the outcome? Kids find themselves in that situation quite often. When boys lose their tears, they losing something important (and this goes for girls as well). He believes that “tears show accepted futility”, they are a “symbol of tranformation”, and “where adaptation is born”. When a child is in a place outside of their control, they have 2 choices, adaptation or aggression. Being adaptive is an ability to become transformed or changed by that which we cannot change. Our tears are our biological response that helps us adapt to the things we cannot change. They are an outward manifestation of adaptation, where we move our feelings of frustration into feelings of futility.

In his “Making Sense of Discipline” lecture at the “Leading our Kids with Heart” conference in Cranbrook, Gordon Neufeld stated that traditional cultures knew that there was a connection between a child’s tears, and discipline. He said, “If the tears are stuck, children usually move to aggression”. I’m not sure if Santa prefers aggressive kids over a child that cries, but I sure don’t. That which we cannot change can transform us, and if it takes my child some tears to move towards transformation and adaptation, then I’m okay with that.

the 5 best toys

the five best toys? Wired's top 5 toys by Jonathan Lui, was sure to have the best of the best newest coolest toys right?

i totally thought Lego would be in the list. what else though? Wired's 5 Best was even better than i expected, and if you can believe it... Lego wasn't included.

The top 5? stick, box, string, cardboard tube and good ol' dirt! Check out this article to source these for your favorite munchin's christmas list.

now... i gotta say they missed one - good ol' log!