Yes, Virginia. There IS A Santa Claus
Because it's been another rough year, we need a little Christmas right this very minute because we've all grown a little sadder, grown a little older and we need a little angel to sit upon our shoulder. So this year I bring you, as I have for many years in this column, a bit of the season's wonder and magic from 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon and veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church, an unlikely but, never the less, perfect pair of Christmas angels.
One hundred and twenty six years ago, 8-year-old O'Hanlon wrote this letter to the editors of the New York Sun newspaper:
“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little 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 WEST NINETYFIFTH
STREET.”
On Sept. 21, 1897 Mr. Church's reply was printed on the editorial page of the Sun Times. It is as good of a read now as it was then. It holds a timeless truth: that just because you cannot see something does not prove it doesn't exist. Just because you cannot see Santa; just because you cannot see the Spirit of Christmas, both surely exist just as hope, generosity, devotion, courage, resilience, faith and love exist.
So this year I again offer up the wondrous writing of Mr. Church with the sincere wish that it helps my readers to unwrap themselves a Very Merry Christmas.
Yes, Virginia. There IS A Santa Claus
“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 about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of 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 were 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 this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with 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 that 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 there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
“You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal 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.”