At 8:15 a.m. this morning, four members of Tyrone High\u2019s speech team celebrated the birthday of Santa Claus by performing a 16-line poem entitled \u201cSanta Claus! Santa Claus! You Are Much Too Fat\u201d for all Tyrone students, over the school\u2019s public address system.
\nSenior Russell Beck and freshman Ryan Bressler introduced the 16-line poem by reminding students that December 6 historically marks the birthday of a man Christened Saint Nicholas. As the years passed, Saint Nicholas became the patron saint of children and of gift giving.
\nBeck and Bressler informed students that according to slightly sketchy records, Saint Nicholas was born in Turkey on December 6 more than 1,700 years ago. In Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and other countries, December 6 has become a holiday for school students.
\nBeck and Bressler further reminded Tyrone students that in these countries, Saint Nicholas came to be nicknamed Father Christmas. Eventually in America, the Patron Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas evolved into Santa Claus.
\nOnce Beck and Bressler finished their birthday biography of Saint Nicholas, speech team sophomores Matthew Murray and Andrew Clark took to the telephone microphones in the main office to perform this comic novelty poem, energized by the rhythm of \u201cJingle Bells\u201d:
\nI heard a reindeer hood, then Santa dressed in red,
\nCame crashing through the roof and landed on my bed.
\nI thought it was a dream, but quickly did I wake,
\nAs soon as I heard Santa scream – \u201cI want a piece of cake!\u201d
\nHe got up off the floor and said \u201cHow do you do?\u201d
\nI said, \u201cMy back is sore, my head is black and blue!\u201d
\n\u201cSo sorry!\u201d he replied, and then he asked my name.
\nHe offered me a ride, I said, \u201cNo thank you just the same!\u201d
\nI heard a \u201cho, ho, ho\u201d the sleigh was in the sky,
\nBut it was moving slow and wasn\u2019t very high.
\nIt wobbled in the air, I hoped it wouldn\u2019t fall;
\nSaid Santa, chewing cookies, \u201cMerry Christmas, one and all!\u201d
\nOh! Santa Claus, Santa Claus, you are much too fat;
\nI was sleeping peacefully, but now my bed is flat.
\nOh! Santa Claus, Santa Claus, how much do you weigh?
\nI\u2019m glad I\u2019m not a reindeer, that has to pull your sleigh!
\nNinth grade English teacher Richard Merryman, coach of Tyrone\u2019s 94-year-old speech team, made this observation about the team\u2019s Saint Nicholas birthday celebration, \u201cAlthough this performance by the speech team at first may appear frivolous, we believe that it achieves several valuable educational goals: first, it reminds students that Santa Claus had a basis in actual history, second, it teaches speakers to alter their voice expression between narration and conversation in the poem, and third, it trains speakers to adopt voice rhythms from famous Christmas carols for their poetic performances.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At 8:15 a.m. this morning, four members of Tyrone High\u2019s speech team celebrated the birthday of Santa Claus by performing a 16-line poem entitled \u201cSanta Claus! Santa Claus! You Are Much Too Fat\u201d for all Tyrone students, over the school\u2019s public address system. Senior Russell Beck and freshman Ryan Bressler introduced the 16-line poem by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}