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| Nora Pauley |
When Santa asked the students in Nora Pauley’s
kindergarten class who knew the names of his reindeer, Pauley raised her hand
along with many of the children.
Her favorite reindeer is Blitzen. “I think the name
has a lot of personality,” Pauley said.
In most of the kindergarten and pre-kindergarten
classes that Santa visited at Hall-Woodward Elementary School this morning, the
response was universally enthusiastic.
Lots of students shouted “Santa!” as he
came through the door. In Karen Martin’s kindergarten class, one girl jumped up
and down while saying, “Goody! Goody!”
As a gift, Santa gave each student a wrapped book so
the greetings were soon followed by such comments as “I got a present.”
And, when he left each class, there were lots of “Thank
you, Santa.”
In one class, a boy said, “That was so cool!”
In Pauley’s class, though, Santa had a heckler. “You’re
not Santa,” said one little girl.
Santa knows exactly who he is, though, so he was unfazed.
And, once the girl opened her gift, she moved on to more important matters,
such as flipping through her new book.
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| Santa with Jennifer Cobb, Susan Paschal and Tina Long |
Each year, the people at the Greater Winston-Salem
Chamber of Commerce invite Santa to visit Hall-Woodward, and, each year, he accepts. Before catching up with students in first
and second grade, he visits the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms
accompanied by such elves as Jennifer Cobb and Tina Long of the Chamber of
Commerce and Susan Paschal, the school’s curriculum coordinator for grades
kindergarten through second grade.
This was the last year that Paschal will be making
the rounds with him, though. She is retiring and Friday is her last day.
“The grandchildren are calling me,” she told Santa.
In several of the rooms, Santa checked to see
whether students knew what his favorite snack and beverage is. Pretty much all
the children already knew it was chocolate chip cookies and milk. The students
in one class were stumped, though, when he asked what reindeer like for a
snack. Carrots, he told them. So now they know.
When Santa came into Emily Terrell’s kindergarten
class, students were making holiday cards to take home to family members on
Friday. There, a boy asked Santa to “Ho! Ho! Ho!” He did.
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| Santa with Principal Celena Tribby |
Principal Celena Tribby stopped in to say hello to
Santa. Her wish? “I want all my babies to be safe and happy and I want my teachers
to get a pay raise.”
In Jennifer Miller’s class, a boy told Santa that he
had heard that Santa couldn’t eat peanut butter. Santa told him that we wasn’t
allergic or anything but that he did avoid it. “It gets stuck in my beard.”
In the hall outside Jeannette Morrison’s class, you
could hear students singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” When he came in,
they sang it for him again.
“We love it when Santa comes,” Morrison said.
Morrison told Santa that she had told students that
he had his ear. “I use it as leverage,” she said.
Santa assured the students that he pays close
attention to what every teacher says. “All the teachers are my elves,” he said.
In Shanda Morrison’s pre-kindergarten class, Santa
sat down in a rocking chair. When it was time to go, the chair came up with
him.
“This might have been a mistake,” Santa said.
Once he was safely extracted from the rocking chair,
it was off to the gym where Santa handed out suckers and pencils to the first-
and second-graders, and Paschal, in case anyone was wondering, mentioned that the
second-grade teachers were participating in Ugly Sweater Day.
