‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus’
As is our tradition, we offer Virginia O’Hanlon’s 1897letter to the New York Sun and Francis P. Church’s reply.
One of this nation’s most enduring Christmas tales is the reply by Francis P. Church, editorial writer for the New York Sun, to a letter from little Virginia O’Hanlon of Manhattan, asking if there was a Santa Claus.
The famed response first appeared in the Sun on Sept. 21, 1897.
Virginia grew up, married and became a teacher in the Chatham school district in Columbia County. She died in Chatham at age 81 on May 13, 1971.
Her letter, Church’s reply and her 1937 letter on the subject of Santa Claus live on. As has become our custom each year, we reprint them below. Merry Christmas!
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Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old. Some of my friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in THE SUN, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon,
115 W. 95th St.
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Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see.
They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world around him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas!
How dreary would be the world if there was no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable their existence. The eternal light which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus. But even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but there is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world and not the strongest man, not even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
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Convinced that belief in Santa Claus and fairies is essential to a happy childhood, an adult Virginia wrote a second letter published by Grosset and Dunlap in a small book dated Sept. 21, 1937:
“Is there a Santa Claus?” Dear children of yesterday and today, when that question was asked, I, a little girl, was interested in finding the answer just for myself.
Now, grown up and a teacher, I want so much that all little children believe there really is a Santa Claus. For I understand how essential a belief in Santa Claus and fairies, too, is to a happy childhood.
Some little children doubt that Santa still lives because often their letters, for one reason or another, never seem to reach him.
Nurses in hospitals know who some of these children are. Teachers in great city schools will know others. Dear children of yesterday, won’t you try to seek out these trusting children of today and make sure that their letters in some way reach Santa Claus so that “he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood?” That, I think, is the best way of proving there is a Santa Claus, both for ourselves and for the children.
Do you remember how Peter Pan once asked us to show our belief in fairies? You will, of course, do it a little differently, but you will each understand how. So, like Peter, I say, “Show you believe, please show you do.”
And I shall always be gratefully yours,
Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas