Santa Claus banned from Viennese kindergartens
by admin November 28th, 2006 in General, Local News“Santa Claus is dead”, says Christine Spiess, the boss of 360 municipal kindergartens. She declares a ban for Santa Claus on entering the kindergartens in Vienna. Even Catholic kindergartens are not allowed anymore to invite Santa Claus to meet the children.
Children are afraid of Santa Claus, and after his visit many of them are extremly irritated, says a speaker of the youth city councillor Grete Laska (Socialdemocrats). The speaker wants to make it crystal clear that the ban for Santa Claus is not because Muslim children and their parents are offended about this kind of Christian tradition in Austria.
While Santa Claus has to stay away from kindergartens, he is still welcome in the children’s hospital of Max Friedrich. “Santa Claus is an important character”, he says.
As a former Austrian citizen ( now USA cititzen ) I am appalled that politics once again decides for parents of children
what is good for them. I was never scared of ” Sankt Nikolaus ” or his partner . This is a long time custom and an
integral part of the country and history!! It should be the responsibility of the parents to explain what Santa Claus is
about and that he was a good man and that he did a lot of good . Needless to say, I don’t need to explain what the
history is about. If parents still have a problem then they should have the children excused into another room of the
school/Kindergarten. Don’t spoil a tradition because of a few individuals that did not get the proper parenting in which
the custom was explained. Perhaps the next political edict/intervention by the likes of Ms. Grete Laska and Ms. Christine
Spiess will be the campaign against the Kristkindel Markt beause there are too many sweets available that might hurt the
young children or the fast food restaurants that if children eat to much of that food that it will perhaps cause obesity.
When will this insanity stop ?? I hope that the parents will stand up for the rights of their children and not take this
without a fight!! I would not be surprised if there aren’t more important issues for these elected / appointed officials
to put their energies into. Respectfully, Karl - Heinz Graf e-mail: grafx@attglobal.net