Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

The other day, my cousin Rita sent me along with a few of her friends, this oldie, but goodie of an email about an eight year old girl in 1897 who wanted to know if Santa was real. Here it is:

Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York 's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis P.Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial.

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 NINETY-FIFTH STREET

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… 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.

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. . . Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unusable in the world.

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.

Just as a footnote, I am 40 years old & Yes, I still do believe in Santa Claus. It might not be in the physical body of a man who travels the world giving presents to all the good little girls & boys, but it is the Spirit of the Season in which we both give & receive gifts, decorate our houses both inside & out in beautiful lights & decorations, and we exhibit good will to all of mankind. A lot of people complain that the season is too commercialized & lost it's meaning. To that I say maybe it has become a little too comercialized by retail standards, but by my standards, I still enjoy celebrating the Spirit of the season with my family & friends just the way Santa Claus does!

Yuletide Blessings,

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