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Deaf girl gets to talk to Santa for the first time thanks to elf who knows sign language

Holly the Elf made this holiday extra special.

via Gustavo Fring/Pexels

Santa hands a gift to a little girl.

It has to be incredibly frustrating to be a deaf child who can’t tell Santa exactly what they want for Christmas. That’s why a community’s work to ensure that Emily Andrews, 4, from East Yorkshire, England, had a British Sign Language (BSL) translator at a Santa event was so special.

A video shared by Southwest News Service shows Andrews speaking to Santa with the help of Melanie Boyeson, also known as Holly the Elf, who knows BSL. Through Boyeson, Emily could tell Santa that she wanted a doll, a stroller, earrings and a ring on Christmas morning.

"It was just a magical experience. Emily being able to communicate freely with the elf and tell Santa what she wanted was just amazing,” Tanya Ansrews, the girl’s mother, told SWNS.

Deaf girl meets Santa properly for first time - thanks to signing elf 🥰🎅🎁 | LOVE THIS

The moment was even more meaningful because on 4 occasions the family had been promised that a sign language worker would be present to help the young girl communicate with Santa, but it never worked out.

Emily’s brother goes to Airmyn Park Primary School, and when the head teacher, Natalie Dodd, heard about her struggles, she reached out to the community to find a translator for their school’s Santa event.

"Through the power of Facebook, we found Holly the Elf, whose real name is Melanie Boyeson, and she volunteered to visit our grotto and interpret for Emily," Dodds said. "Even though Emily isn’t a pupil here, she is part of our extended school family. As a small school, we are privileged to be able to embrace the wider school and village community, and we wanted to provide this experience for Emily."

Tanya told the BBC that there should be more holiday events with BSL interpreters for deaf children. “Everyone should be treated equally,” she said.

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Moms and their kids with Down syndrome created the best music video of 2018.

It's amazing what an extra chromosome can do.

Humans typically have 23 pairs of them, but some people have 22 matched pairs and a set of three. That genetic sequence often leads to Down syndrome. While medical books call this phenomenon "trisomy," parents usually prefer the term "miracle."

All GIFs via Wouldn't Change a Thing/YouTube.

That's probably why 50 different mothers and their children with Down syndrome joined forces to celebrate World Down Syndrome Day.

The families each lip-synced and signed along to Christina Perri's hit ballad "A Thousand Years."

"I have died everyday, waiting for you."

"Darling, don't be afraid."

"I have loved you for a thousand years."

"I'll love you for a thousand more."

The parents met as part of Designer Genes, a Facebook group for parents who have a child with Down syndrome born in 2013 or 2014. (There are several different digital chapters of the group online.)

Each parent recorded a video in the car, a send-up to the popular Carpool Karaoke segment on "The Late Late Show With James Corden." The pieces were edited together to create a heartwarming music video, capturing the beautiful, happy, and perfectly ordinary lives these families lead.

The signs they're using in the video aren't American or British Sign Language, but Makaton.

Makaton is a language program that employs hand signs and written symbols to help people of all ages communicate. Unlike traditional sign language, the symbols and signs are used in spoken word order. It's a flexible system and can be adapted across different languages and cultures. More than 100,000 people currently use the language, with many starting as children and phasing it out when they develop speech while others continue to use Makaton into adulthood.

The video was inspired by Singing Hands, an organization in the U.K. that offers Makaton classes, videos, and songbooks. Singing Hands released their own version of "A Thousand Years," which inspired the moms of "Designer Genes" to put their compilation together in time for the annual World Down Syndrome Day on March 21.

That extra chromosome may seem like too much to handle or something to fear. But it's just the opposite.

It's not something to shy away from. It's something to embrace, celebrate, take pride in, and love. With representation and visibility opportunities like this, these parents and families are telling the world and their kids that extra chromosome or no, they "Wouldn't Change a Thing."

Grab a tissue and enjoy the heartwarming video in full.

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These Irish girls performed a sign-language Christmas classic to prove a powerful point.

Everyone knows the best thing about Christmas is the Christmas songs.

Image via iStock.

"Jingle Bells"? Classic. "Frosty the Snowman"? Timeless. "Feliz Navidad"? You know you secretly love it.

And this holiday season is a perfect time to think about how we can make our favorite traditions accessible to everyone, even people who may not be able to hear all of those festive classics.

That's why three students from Ireland recently made a sign-language sing-a-long of Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Abbie O'Neill, Amy Durkin, and Joanne O'Donnell, who are students at the Centre for Deaf Studies at Trinity College, donned their finest winter hats and proceeded to jam out to one of the catchiest Christmas classics ever created.

Using only their hands, of course.

The video started off as a class assignment but soon spread far and wide via social media, both inside and beyond the deaf community.

"We've got such supportive responses and messages from hearing and deaf people from all around the world," the three friends wrote in an email.

The video currently has over 200,000 views on Facebook, where hundreds of commenters have shared their admiration for the girls' efforts.

Check the video out below:

It's a month till Christmas yo!! Irish Sign Language performance of Santa Claus is Coming to Town :)

Posted by Abbie O'Neill on Friday, November 25, 2016

But this wasn't just a holly-jolly gesture of inclusion. It was part of a much bigger statement.

Ireland has a deaf and hard-of-hearing population of over 90,000 people, many of whom rely on Irish Sign Language (ISL) to communicate and live their lives. But ISL isn't currently recognized as an official language by the Republic of Ireland. That means many in the deaf community face tremendous difficulties in schools that don't cater to their needs or accessing government programs that aren't required to provide interpreters.

In a broader sense, not recognizing ISL as an official language leads to a much bigger lack of awareness and consideration for the deaf community, too. O'Neill, Durkin, and O'Donnell recall going to see a subtitled film recently. The theater staff forgot to turn on the subtitles until several minutes into the movie. After the movie, they spoke to a deaf couple in the audience about it. The couple "simply laughed — they're all used to this lack of awareness and indifference from the wider hearing community."

In a broader sense, not recognizing ISL leads to a much bigger lack of awareness and consideration for the deaf community.

But there is hope on the horizon, in the form of the Irish Sign Language Bill, sponsored by Sen. Mark Daly, that would designate ISL as a native and independent language. The bill is quickly gaining momentum.

"The Irish deaf community have been denied equal rights and opportunities for years," Daly told The Journal. "The impact of this piece of legislation would be truly transformative."

If and when the bill passes, it will be due in large part to the efforts of Ireland's deaf community in bringing more attention to the conflict.

So while this viral video might look like just an adorable sing-a-long, it's actually a lot more.

Thanks to three students, it's also part of an important mission: improving the lives of thousands and thousands of deaf Irish men and women.

"The Deaf Community in Ireland has been fighting for years to have ISL recognised," the friends wrote. "We're just happy that we could bring some awareness to it."

That alone is a heck of a gift this holiday season.

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A Supreme Court justice said 4 words in American Sign Language. Here's why that's awesome.

On Tuesday, April 19, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said, "Your motion is granted" in court. Sound typical? It's not.

Because for the first time in U.S. history, these words were spoken from the Supreme Court bench in American Sign Language.

To most people, that probably doesn't sound like a big deal. After all, it's just one little phrase, right? And it's not like he said something cool like "Awkward turtle" or "My hovercraft is full of eels" either.

He just said a thing that judges normally say in court.

Chief Justice Roberts. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

But for the millions of Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing — including the 12 lawyers who were being sworn into the Supreme Court bar that day — it means a lot.

It wasn't until 1982 that a deaf lawyer was given an opportunity to argue in front of the Supreme Court. More than three decades later, there are around 200 deaf lawyers working in America. By contrast, licensed lawyers make up about 0.4% of the total U.S. population.

“Some deaf or hard-of-hearing lawyers doubt that they can actually practice law," Howard Rosenblum, one of the lawyers who was sworn in that day, told the Washington Post. “But the real practice is based on intellect and deaf people have that in spades.”

“I think the biggest challenge has been to get people to give me the opportunity,” added Teresa Curtin, another deaf lawyer sworn in Chief Justice Roberts.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

And that illuminates a real problem in our culture: The assumption that people with physical disabilities are somehow less qualified to use their minds.

There's another issue, too, with the way we tend to dismiss those who struggle to communicate in standard American English. But whereas we're willing to learn bits and phrases of other languages to help us move through the world — who doesn't know how to say "hello" or "where's the bathroom?" in at least one other language? — we're much less accommodating of communication barriers like deafness.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

It's easy to assume that all deaf people have a supernatural ability to read lips, for example. But lipreading is a pretty ineffective form of communication. Even if you think you're doing a good thing by speaking slowly and oh-ver-ee-nun-see-ate-ing eh-vuh-ree sill-uh-bull, most lip-readers can still only understand about 30% of what's being said.

American Sign Language, on the other hand, is actually an incredibly efficient way to connect with people. It's clear, it's concise, and there are less complicated verb conjugations to worry about. You don't have to worry about talking over someone in order to be heard. You can communicate with anyone in a crowd as long as they're in eyesight, and that's pretty cool!

Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images.

Deaf people, like anyone else, are capable of amazing things. But if we're going to make them find their way in the hearing world, the least we can do is talk to them on their terms.

By speaking those four simple words in ASL, Chief Justice Roberts demonstrated a willingness to embrace the Deaf community and meet them where they are. Instead of sitting back and watching as they climbed across the hearing barriers, that one simple signing action communicated something much more than words. It said, "I see you, and I acknowledge that you matter just as much as anyone else."

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