'Scrooge' Teacher Reined In Over Santa Gaffe

                 

The teacher had to apologise after claiming Santa was not real

3:55pm UK, Sunday December 04, 2011

A New York teacher has apologised after telling her class of seven and eight-year-olds there was no such thing as Santa Claus.

Leatrice Ann Eng, 58, called each of the students' parents with a yuletide mea culpa for her gaffe.

Ms Eng was in the middle of a lesson about the North Pole on Tuesday when one of her students pointed out that was where Santa Claus lives.

The teacher replied that not only was there no Santa but it was their mums and dads who left their presents under the tree.

The comment outraged parents who branded her a "real-life Scrooge".

"It's sad. She was wrong," said Irene Hoffman, a mother of three children at George W. Miller Elementary School in Nanuet, New York.

"This whole thing is being blown out of proportion. I think we should focus on our children's education and just move on."

http://news.sky.com/home/strange-news/article/16123515

               Do we have the right to tell a child Santa Claus is a legend? Honestly, I don’t really care about. My 7 year-old sister still believes in this and I don’t feel the right to break her imagination about all this “Christmas magic” thing. What I care more about is all this concept of Christmas and how it became important, even essential for companies. Christmas : a nice old man with a white beard or a real profitable business ?

                To understand this phenomenon, we have to come back to the early 1800s with St Nicholas, formerly bishop of Myra (an old city of actual Turkey), imagined by Washington Irving as an Elfin Dutch burgher with a clay pipe who comes down chimneys to bring gifts to people. After lots of poems, and all kind of portrays, he became Santa Claus, icon of Christmas consumerism, largely popularized by Coca Cola ads. This history has its importance.

                Indeed, today French people spend around 500 euros for Christmas gifts, and they seem really cheap because English people can spend around twice more to celebrate Christmas! Lots of companies wait for Christmas to increase their sales around 10 times compared to another month of the year. And people, even during economic crisis context seem to stop looking “sad” news about failures of European economy and try to be happy by buying and offering gifts to their family and friends.

                Christmas became so important that even a teacher has to apologize for telling the truth to children, is it for Christmas Magic or for Christmas Business? The only thing I know is that we are December 5^th and I am part of the 70% of people who still don’t have any gifts to offer, and certainly 50% of people who don’t have any idea of what I can offer to my girlfriend. Any ideas?

Matthieu Demey

Jeanlain beer – A family story from Northern France

In 1922, Felix Duyck settled a brewery near Valenciennes named Jeanlain. The passion of brewering the beer has been transmitted by his dad Léon who created a first brewery in Flanders.

Felix created the champagne bottle because he would like to recycle empty champagne bottles to enable the Jeanlain beer to be consumed at home.
Raymond Duyck, the great grandson of Léon, took over the family business. 

Since 2002, he has led an active development strategy in the brewery undertaking investments in new equipment meeting market requirements in term of quality.

In 2005, Robert launched the Jeanlain Blonde demonstrating the Brasserie Duyck’s expertise to offer clients its values, authenticity and modernity.

To achieve the market’s needs and meet the increasing demand, the 40 employees of the Duyck’s brewery started a new unit for packaging the beer in metal cans.

The secret of the Jeanlain beer is the top fermentation which takes five days, during which the yeast transforms the sugar in the wort into alcohol and produces carbonic acid. After this period the beer is left to rest in the vat for four weeks. 

From the beginning, hard work, know-how and love for tradition have been the qualities on which the renown of the Brasserie Duyck has been built. After more than a century of brewing, owing the high demand for the Jeanlain and people who would already come from far to taste the beer, Jeanlain is one of the best Northern beer in the world and this beer is French.

When would you want to taste a Jeanlain? Quentin