‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus’

This classic holiday editorial first ran in 1897 in the New York Sun.

The letter to the editor was from a young girl named Virginia

O’Hanlon. The author of the reply was veteran Sun editor Francis

Church. The piece was reprinted annually until the paper went out of

business in 1949. We’ve decided to keep that tradition going here at

the Daily Pilot:

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 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.