Yes, there is a Santa Claus

Did you see Santa Claus last night? Did he sneak down your chimney

or through your windows and place presents under the tree? Were there

only crumbs where cookies once lay with a note and a glass of milk?

What! You can’t be serious. Are you saying that you don’t believe?

Not at all? Well of course Christmas is about the child in the

manger, but don’t you think there might also be room for a jolly old

soul?

Before you say yes or no, read what the New York Sun had to say in

1897 to an 8-year-old girl named Virginia O’Hanlon, who dared to ask

if Santa Claus is real. In an ever-darkening world, sometimes it is

the simple things that help us keep faith in humanity.

The following letter and editorial by Francis P. Church ran on

Sept. 21, 1897, when William McKinley was president and the Civil

War, which ended in 1865, still burned in people’s memories:

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 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 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

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 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, 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 to all.

* JENNIFER K MAHAL is features editor of the Daily Pilot. She may

be reached at (949) 574-4282 or jennifer.mahal@latimes.com.