Yes, Virginia There Is A Santa Claus

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful."

-Norman Vincent Peale

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve... can you believe it? I am happy this year. I am focusing on the blessings of the year, and I am kinda like a little kid sometimes, because I really love Christmas Eve, and all the silly traditions Alan and I have. One of which is to meet at Starbuck's, late in the day on Christmas Eve, so we can just relax and enjoy each other's company. :) It's an annual date for us, and it makes me smile. :)

Now I want to share something else that makes me smile, it's one of my favorite stories of the holiday season. The letter from a little girl named, Virginia 'O Hanlon, the an editor of the New York Sun, in which she inquires about the existence of Santa Claus...

Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus

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

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 it's highest beauty 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 external 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 you 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 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 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 untied strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, 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 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Francis Church, Editor, New York Sun
September 21st, 1897

-OndineMonet
"Magic"
Berkeley, California
December 24th, 2006
Late Evening